Somali Fighting Displaces 100,000 in Capital This Year, UN Says

At least 100,000 people have been forced to flee their homes in the Somali capital, Mogadishu, since the start of the year amid a continuing fight for control of the city, the United Nations humanitarian office said.

Government forces and insurgents have been guilty of “clear violations of the law of war” by firing weapons into densely populated areas, Mark Bowden, the UN’s coordinator for Somalia, said today in an e-mailed statement. About 900 civilians were wounded in fighting in Mogadishu in March, with more than 100 of those injured being children under the age of five. At least 30 civilians were killed last month, he said.

The latest round of clashes on April 12 killed at least 19 people and wounded about 55, Bowden said. A children’s school and a UN compound were hit by shells fired by insurgents, killing a guard and a day laborer, he said.

“I am deeply disturbed by the plight facing civilians in Mogadishu, who are caught amidst the warring parties,” he said.

Somalia’s Western-backed government, which controls only a portion of Mogadishu, has been battling Islamist insurgents opposed to its rule since 2007. Last month, the government signed an accord with the Ahlu Sunna wal Jama’a, a Sufist militia, to join forces against the al-Shabaab militia, which the U.S. accuses of having links with al-Qaeda.

Al-Shabaab said in February that it summoned reinforcements from southern Somalia to fight off a planned attack by the government on its positions in Mogadishu.

Somalia has one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises, with some 1.5 million people internally displaced and more than 560,000 people living as refugees in neighboring countries, the United Nations Refugee Agency said in January. The country hasn’t had a functioning central administration since the ouster of the former dictator, Mohamed Siad Barre, in 1991.

--Editors: Karl Maier, Alastair Reed

To contact the reporter on this story: Paul Richardson in Johannesburg at pmrichardson@bloomberg.net.

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Simon Casey at scasey4@bloomberg.net.

Source: Bloomberg.