Up to 400Â 000 people may have fled fighting in Somalia’s capital, Mogadishu, the United Nations’s humanitarian chief said on Thursday, warning that aid had reached less than a fifth of the refugees.
The UN refugee agency said last Friday that an estimated 321Â 000 Somalis had fled Mogadishu since the beginning of February, based on monitoring by local agencies.
”I think these estimates are rising rapidly … We’re probably nearer 340Â 000 or 350Â 000 now — I’ve even seen a figure of 400Â 000,” UN Undersecretary General for Humanitarian Affairs John Holmes told journalists.
”The latest estimate was that we probably had access to about 60Â 000 of those who fled,” he added, warning that the situation was ”very critical”.
The UN wants to deliver relief assistance to about one million people in Somalia, including the legacy from previous crises, drought or flooding.
Aid agencies have reported columns of people and chaotic scenes on roads out of the capital, rising illness and a shortage of food and water for the displaced.
But aid is barely trickling through due to insecurity and blockages mainly attributed to the Somali government.
Civilians left in Mogadishu braved unrelenting shelling and machine-gun fire as Ethiopians forces and Islamist guerrillas battled for the ninth consecutive day, setting buildings ablaze.
More than one-third of Mogadishu’s population has now fled and the exact number of casualties inside the city is unknown.
Holmes reiterated calls for a ceasefire there, warning that the situation could only worsen if the fighting carried on with its current intensity.
”We face a very critical and dangerous situation where the rules of international humanitarian law are being flouted by all sides, I think, in Mogadishu,” Holmes said.
The UN is expecting to test a pledge from the Somali government not to block relief operations by flying supplies into airstrips in the region ”in the next day or two”, he added.
Holmes said the UN had also been talking with the Ethiopians.
”All the factions, including the Ethiopian forces there, are equally guilty of indiscriminate use of violence in a civilian area, which is having a dramatic effect in terms of death, injuries and displacement,” he said in response to a question about Ethiopia’s role.
”I certainly don’t except them from what is happening.”
Ethiopia on Thursday rejected allegations from human rights groups that its troops were targeting civilians, saying they had ”taken every possible precaution to avoid or minimise civilian loss of life and civilian casualties”. — Sapa-AFP