Image ©2008 E Hockstein/UNHCR, on flickr.com

Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Over 204,000 people have fled their homes in the northern suburbs of Mogadishu, Somalia to escape fighting since Islamist militants began their campaign eight weeks ago to gain control of the city, according to Geneva-based UNHCR (United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees). Local groups working with the UN agency say that fighting has claimed 105 lives and 380 wounded in the past week.

Many of them join some 400,000 massed in the Afgooye corridor, about 30 km northwest of the city, already displaced by previous fighting. Most are leaving the city altogether and going farther afield. UNHCR says that 11,000 people were newly registered in a camp in the Dadaab refugee complex across the border in northern Kenya, hundreds of kilometres away. UNHCR says some 36,000 Somalis have arrived at the camp this year already. The agency estimates that 1.2 million people have been displaced by the conflict.

The fighting in Somlalia, which has not had a functioning government since 1991, pits a weak transitional government against militants of the Al-Shaabab and Hisb-ul-IslamIslamist groups, suspected of ties to Al-Qaeda. The US government confirmed last week it was supplying arms to the government.

Related: BBC, CNN, UNHCR

Background: “Somalia’s security chief dies in suicide bombing“, 19 June 2009, GenevaLunch

Map and description of UNHCR’s Somalia operations and photo gallery on flickr

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