Somalia crisis
'Africa's worst'
The "very dire" humanitarian crisis in Somalia is the worst in
Africa for many years, says Oxfam's co-ordinator for the failed Horn
of Africa state.
Many of its hundreds of thousands of internally-displaced people,
the world's largest such concentration, have little food or shelter,
he said.
Mogadishu civilians have been fleeing intense fighting between
Islamist guerrillas and pro-government forces.
The government says it has regained control of a second part of the
city.
Mogadishu's deputy mayor Abdifitah Ibrahim Shawey said Islamist
insurgents had been ousted from Dharikinley police station in the
south-west of the capital, after the government took Yaqshid police
base in the north of the city on Monday.
Following an upsurge in violence over the past month, some 200
people are crossing the border into Kenya each day, the UN says.
'Kidnapped son'
Aden Mohamed Nur, 80, had managed to stay in Mogadishu throughout
the last 18 years of conflict, but has just arrived in Kenya after a
week-long journey.
"My son was kidnapped. After five days he was released by his
captors. That's the time I decided to flee for the Kenyan refugee
camps," he told the BBC.
"I left behind all my property."
The BBC's Mohamed Olad Hassan in Mogadishu says city-dwellers are
taking advantage of a relative lull in the fighting on Tuesday to
get out, carrying light belongings in the arms.
Many thousands of people, mainly women and children, have fled to
Afgooye, just south of the city where most are sheltering under
trees with little to eat or drink, he says.
Hassan Noor, Oxfam's humanitarian co-ordinator for Somalia, told the
BBC's Network Africa programme circumstances in the capital were
"very dire".
"The situation is really appalling," he said.
"There are hundreds of children all over the area with tubes on
their faces and [saline] drips on their hands. Some of them are
actually unconscious and suffering from all sorts of diseases,
mainly acute diarrhoea and cholera."
"I have seen the situation in Darfur, northern Uganda, some parts of
Congo, but what is actually happening now in Somalia is indeed the
worst kind of humanitarian situation in Africa in many years," he
added.
Roadside bomb
Radical Islamist militia groups, Hisbul-Islam and al-Shabab, have
been locked in see-sawing battles in the Somali capital with
pro-government forces that have displaced more than 60,000 civilians
since 7 May.
Pro-government forces have been pressing on with a counter-offensive
launched last week against the insurgents, who control swathes of
southern and central Somalia.
At least five Somali policemen were killed in a roadside bomb blast
in the south of the capital on Monday.
A moderate Islamist president took office in January but even his
introduction of Sharia law to the strongly Muslim country has not
appeased the guerrillas, who are accused of links to al-Qaeda.
There are 4,300 African Union peacekeepers from Uganda and Burundi
in the capital to help bolster the government, but they do not have
a mandate to pursue the insurgents.
It is estimated at least one million people have been internally
displaced by almost perpetual civil conflict in the country since
the collapse of its central government in 1991.
Source:BBC
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