Region | Somalia
Army search 'displaces' Mogadishu residents
Somali and Ethiopian troops have ordered thousands in the Somali capital to vacate their homes to allow them to conduct searches for arms and insurgents, a human rights group said yesterday.
- AP
- Published: 00:33 September 30, 2007
- Somalis flee following an escalation of violence in Mogadishu. Hundreds of families are fleeing the city to the outskirts, where large refugee camps have formed, especially Elasha Biyaha, 20km south of Mogadishu.
- Image Credit: AP
Mogadishu: Somali and Ethiopian troops have ordered thousands in the Somali capital to vacate their homes to allow them to conduct searches for arms and insurgents, a human rights group said yesterday.
The order was issued on Thursday following an insurgent attack on a government base earlier in the week, said Sudan Ali Ahmad, chairman of Elman Human Rights, an independent Somali group.
"I cannot give you precise numbers of displaced people but I believe they are in the thousands, and they were forced by Ethiopian and Somali troops to vacate their homes," Ahmad told The Associated Press, basing the figures on interviews conducted with residents people forced from their homes.
Most have either left Mogadishu or have sought refugee with relatives and friends in other parts of the city, he said.
Government officials declined to comment on the reported evictions.
'Human shields'
Asha Ali Jimuale, a mother of seven from a northern Mogadishu district, told the AP that she was ordered to leave her home. She said soldiers told her insurgents could use those who say behind as human shields.
The evictions are the first reported since April, a month when there was heavy fighting in Mogadishu that saw hundreds killed, Ahmad said.
He said when insurgents in Mogadishu attack government positions, "the Ethiopians and government troops launch security operations and the [hardliners] go to residential areas to use civilians as a shield". Ahmad condemned both sides, saying: "They do not care about the lives of the civilians."
On Friday, the UN refugee agency said its staff in Mogadishu reported that the city was divided in two - the north deserted as residents flee, the south calm.
"The streets of northern Mogadishu are so empty during the day," the UN agency said in a statement.
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