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From: Biniam Tekle (biniamt@dehai.org)
Date: Fri Apr 29 2011 - 20:42:14 EDT
http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=38231&Cr=somali&Cr1=UN refugee
agency alarmed by large number of people fleeing Somalia
Somalis wait for registration at a camp in Dadaab, Kenya
29 April 2011 – The United Nations refugee agency today voiced alarm at
worsening insecurity in Somalia, which has forced 50,000 people out of the
country in the first three months of this year, more than double the number
of refugees who fled the Horn of Africa nation during a similar period in
2010.
The refugees have sought safety in Kenya, Ethiopia and Yemen, according to
Melissa Fleming, spokesperson for the UN High Commissioner for Refugees
(UNHCR).
Kenya received most of the new arrivals – more than 31,400 – with most taken
into the Dadaab refugee camp complex. The three camps around Dadaab in
eastern Kenya accommodate more than 300,000 Somali refugees.
The majority of the latest group of refugees came from the Bay and Bakol
regions of southern and central Somalia, two of the major conflict zones in
the country, Ms. Fleming told reporters in Geneva.
“They all spoke of a grim situation inside the country, marked by relentless
violence and human rights abuses. Somali refugees told UNHCR teams about
forced conscription by some of the warring parties and crippling drought,”
she said.
Despite the civil unrest in Yemen and the risks involved, more than 22,000
refugees and migrants from other countries in the Horn of Africa had arrived
on Yemeni shores between January and March, according to Ms. Fleming.
Some of the new arrivals told UNHCR officials in Yemen that they were
unaware of the political and social upheaval there, while others said they
had no option but to flee.
“For these Somali refugees the situation in Yemen was still, by comparison,
much safer than the one back home,” said Ms. Fleming.
Somalia has had no fully functioning national government and has been
wracked by factional warfare since the collapse in 1991 of the
administration led by the late Muhammad Siad Barre.
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