OVER 40,000 DISPLACED SOMALIS RETURN TO CAPITAL DESPITE CLASHES, SAYS UN AGENCY New York, Feb 27 2009 10:10 AM
The violence has led to civilian casualties and the agency is currently assessing the scale of displacement caused by this latest round of fighting, spokesperson William Spindler told reporters in Geneva.
“UNHCR is not encouraging returns to Mogadishu at this juncture, as the security situation is volatile and the conditions are certainly not conducive,” he said, noting that there is limited access to basic services and very few international aid agencies on the ground due to the violence.
“Nevertheless, we are preparing to help returnees or those who wish to return in the near future, in the hope that the security situation will improve,” Mr. Spindler <"said'>http://www.unhcr.org/cgi-bin/texis/vtx/media?page=home&id=49a7d8bb2">said.
There are some 1.3 million Somalis uprooted within their own country, while last year alone, 100,000 people fled to neighbouring Kenya, Ethiopia, Djibouti and Yemen, and the total number of Somali refugees in asylum countries numbers nearly 450,000.
The majority of the IDPs who have recently returned to Mogadihsu have come from the southern and central regions, which have faced a combination of renewed conflict and severe drought.
Many are returning as complete families, while some are heads of households who have left their relatives behind in camps who have gone to the capital to check on their properties. The returnees are going back to neighbourhoods in northern Mogadishu that are virtually empty after two years of conflict.
Somalia, which has been beset by factional fighting and has not had a functioning central government since 1991, witnessed several encouraging developments over the past month, including the election of the country’s new President and the creation of an enlarged Parliament.
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