September 29, 2007
MOGADISHU, Somalia (AP) - 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 Saturday.
The order was issued Thursday following an insurgent attack on a government base earlier in the week, said Sudan Ali Ahmed, 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," Ahmed 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.
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, Ahmed said.
He said when insurgents in Mogadishu attack government positions, "the Ethiopians and government troops launch security operations and the Islamists go to residential areas to use civilians as a shield."
Ahmed condemned both sides, saying: "They do not care about the lives of the civilians."
On Friday, the U.N. 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 .... literally only a handful of people can be seen," the U.N. refugee agency said in a statement.
The agency said the capital's main market, Bakara, is barely functioning due to "fighting, assassinations and killings linked to robbery."
It also said inflation is running high, with the prices of staple items tripling over the past two months and counterfeit money available everywhere.
Somalia has been ravaged by violence and anarchy since warlords overthrew dictator Mohamed Siad Barre in 1991, then turned on each other. The current government was formed in 2004 but has struggled to assert control.
A radical Islamic group ruled the capital and much of southern Somalia for six months last year, but was kicked out by Ethiopian troops who support the government. Since then, insurgents and government-allied troops have battled nearly every day, and thousands of civilians have been killed this year alone in Mogadishu.
Source: AP, Sept 29, 2007