UN refugee agency says fighting in Somalia has left 63,000 homeless already this year
By APTuesday, January 19, 2010
UNHCR: already 63,000 Somalis displaced in 2010
GENEVA — The U.N. refugee agency says an estimated 63,000 Somalis have been chased from their homes since Jan 1. because of intense fighting in the country.
UNHCR spokeswoman Melissa Fleming says “fighting in central areas of Somalia rages on,” continuing to uproot communities and leave people living in deplorable conditions outside of cities.
Fleming said Wednesday that 14,000 people were displaced over the last two weeks in the capital, Mogadishu.
She said fresh battles in central Somalia’s Belet Weyne and Galgaduud areas have left thousands more homeless.
Somalia has one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises, with 1.5 people displaced inside the country and 560,000 registered as refugees in neighboring countries.
