About 124 000 people have fled the volatile Somali capital, Mogadishu, in the past two months as violence escalated in the war-torn city, the United Nations refugee agency said on Sunday.
About one-10th of them fled in the past week alone, with the majority deserting Mogadishu last month, the UN High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) said in its latest report on the clashes in the Somali capital.
Somalia recently suffered its worst violence in the past 15 years when an Ethiopian offensive against insurgents triggered four days of battles in Mogadishu, killing hundreds and forcing tens of thousands to flee.
”Most of the displaced have headed to the neighbouring regions,” the agency said, referring to the Lower and Middle Shabelle regions near Mogadishu. A few of the displaced left for the semi-autonomous northern region of Puntland, it added.
Local militia and remnants of a defeated Islamist movement have mounted attacks against the Ethiopian and government forces camped in different locations around the capital since their arrival there in late December.
A local rights group, which compiled figures from hospitals and witnesses, said 381 civilians had died and 565 were wounded in the four days of clashes between March 29 and April 1.
Somalia has lacked an effective central government since the ousting of former dictator Mohamed Siad Barre in 1991 touched off a bloody power struggle that exploded into inter-clan warfare. More than 14 attempts to restore a functional government in Somalia have since failed. — Sapa-AFP