SOMALIA: Thousands of residents flee Mogadishu after battles kill hundreds of civilians

Nearly 50,000 people have fled the city in the last 10 days, the United Nations says, bringing the total to almost 100,000 -- or a tenth of Mogadishu's population -- since February. The UN refugee agency UNHCR said the exodus was comparable to conditions after dictator Mohamed Siad Barre was ousted in 1991, ushering in 15 years of anarchy. Refugees have been greeted with hostility in many areas outside the capital, UNHCR said, including being charged extortionate rents for shelter and even shade. Ethiopia joined with President Abdullahi Yusuf's interim government in late 2006 to drive out the Islamists, who had controlled most of south Somalia for six months. The Islamists, who deny Ethiopian and U.S. accusations of al Qaeda links, were roundly defeated but have now regrouped. Arab League Secretary-General Amr Moussa told the Cairo meeting that reconciliation was the only way forward but should not include "those who chose the way of violence and extremism" -- an apparent reference to the Islamists. Somali experts held out little hope the meeting would do more than back a national reconciliation conference scheduled for April 16 in Mogadishu, although there are doubts the government can secure the city by then. Some 1,200 Ugandan soldiers, the advance guard of a planned African Union (AU) peacekeeping force, have failed to stem the violence and instead themselves become an insurgent target. Eritrean President Isaias Afwerki said after meeting Ugandan leader Yoweri Museveni on Tuesday that Kampala should pull out. Eritrea, Ethiopia's arch enemy, denies accusations it armed and trained the Islamists.

ITN Source | April 4, 2007

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