RAIDERS ON THE HORN
Contours of chaos.
Almost 90,000 people have fled Mogadishu or moved to safer areas within the city to escape the latest outbreak of violence in the war-torn Somali capital.
An aid worker in Mogadishu had told UNHCR on Tuesday that fighting on Saturday, Sunday and Monday was “the worst in months.” The situation in the city was calmer on Wednesday and the number of civilians fleeing appeared to fall though people were still seen leaving the capital or preparing to move out.
The mayor of Mogadishu, Mohamed Dheere, issued a radio message on Tuesday urging civilians to stay in their homes. He claimed that people had misunderstood his earlier declarations calling for the evacuation of districts near the sprawling Bakara market as security operations were going to take place there. His words appeared to reassure some people.
But many families wanted to go somewhere safer. “You can feel tension in the air,” a Somali aid worker told UNHCR. “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.”
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“Entire families are now crammed in tiny huts,” a UNHCR staff member reported from Afgooye. “Those who arrived this weekend were hoping to go back to the capital in a matter of days, but now they see their relatives who have been here for months, they lose hope.”
Exiled within their own country, many people can’t hide their frustration. “You see groups of people spontaneously protesting, crying for help from the international community and wondering aloud how long Mogadishu will keep on being destroyed,” the UNHCR staff member added. Article
