Up to 90,000 displaced in deadly Mogadishu clashes: UNHCR

NAIROBI (AFP) — Up to 90,000 civilians were displaced in the Somali capital in three days of fighting, the United Nations said Wednesday, as aid groups warned that catastrophe was unfolding in the shattered nation.

The civilians were displaced in fighting on Saturday, Sunday and Monday that was “the worst in months,” the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) said in a statement.

At least 10 civilians were killed in various incidents over the weekend — including one in which Ethiopian troops opened fire on demonstrators protesting against their presence in Somalia, witnesses and police sources said.

There was a lull in Mogadishu on Wednesday, but civilians continued to flee the seaside metropolis that has seen a deadly escalation in the recent months, the agency said.

“You can feel tension in the air,” the statement quoted an aid worker as saying.

“Everyone is afraid that the lull in fighting is not going to last. They fear the insurgents are organizing themselves and that violence is going to be unleashed on an even higher scale.”

In a separate statement, some 40 humanitarian groups warned that a catastrophe was unfolding in Somalia and that they could no longer meet the war-torn country’s growing relief needs.

“There is an unfolding humanitarian catastrophe in South Central Somalia,” they said in a statement, whose signatories include CARE, Oxfam and Islamic Relief, among others.

The UNHCR said the displacement forced civilians out of Mogadishu and others to move within the city.

“Of the people who have left the capital since Saturday, about 46,000 have settled along the road linking Mogadishu to Afgooye,” some 30 kilometres west of Mogadishu.

“Another 42,000 have either fled Mogadishu for areas outside the city or moved to safer neighbourhoods within the capital.”

The fighting is worsening an already dire humanitarian situation which has left 1.5 million — almost a sixth of the total Somali population — in need of humanitarian assistance.

Mogadishu has been the scene of daily fighting or attacks since Ethiopian-backed government forces ousted an Islamist movement from the country, setting off a deadly insurgency.

Civilians are bearing the brunt of the violence and hundreds are estimated to have been killed since June, although accurate death tolls are not available.

Humanitarian agencies have complained that all parties involved in the conflict have failed to respect human rights and protect civilians, also accusing them of hampering the delivery of aid.

In October, the head of the UN food agency’s Mogadishu office was detained for several days without charge by government authorities.

Meanwhile, Somali President Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed held talks with Ethiopian Foreign Minister Seyoum Mesfin, two days after the resignation of the war-torn country’s premier Ali Mohamed Gedi.

“They are talking about the current security situation in the country, including Ethiopian army efforts to end insecurity in Mogadishu,” said an official in Yusuf’s office in the south-central town of Baidoa.

“The minister asked the president to ensure that problems are peacefully resolved through dialogue,” the official told AFP on condition of anonymity.

Yusuf is holding talks with clan and political leaders to appoint a new prime minister to replace Gedi, who was accused by critics of failing to quell a months-old insurgency and rebuild Somalia’s institutions.

Bloody clan brawls after the 1991 ousting of dictator Mohamed Siad Barre has turned into an endless civil war, exacerbated by the US hunt for Al-Qaeda linked extremists it believes are hiding in Somalia.