Street Warfare; Hospitals closed in northern Mogadishu
Natalie Alcoba, National Post; With Files From AFP
Thursday, July 09, 2009
Patients at a 50-bed pediatric hospital that was treating some of the wounded had to flee for their lives last week, said Somalia's MSF medical director, who is stranded in neighbouring Kenya and has been unable to return to the city, where his family lives.
"It was terrible, you could not imagine. We were not able to even save the community and the beneficiaries who were coming to our facilities," Dr. Mohamed Mahdi said in an interview yesterday.
The escalating conflict between militia and government forces has forced an estimated 204,000 people to flee their homes in the volatile region, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees said this week. The UNHCR estimates 105 people were killed and another 382 injured in the last week.
Hospitals in west and south Mogadishu are still operating and treating the injured -- at the western Daynile Hospital MSF medical teams have treated 869 wounded people and performed 49 operations since the beginning of May. A press release said 162 children and 156 women received emergency treatment; 12 people died.
The escalating conflict in Mogadishu was having a "devastating impact on the city's population," Ron Redmond, spokesman for the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), told reporters this week.
A "deteriorating security environment" in which MSF staff have been kidnapped and one person killed in an explosion has made it increasingly difficult to work in Somalia, the humanitarian organization said in a statement.
It is the first time in 17 years in north Mogadishu that MSF has had to pull out.
"When the fighting reached the area, we could not stay, because we were there to save lives. And you know, the patients that were in the hospital, if you cannot guarantee their safety, you cannot stay," said Dr. Mahdi.
The pediatric hospital that closed in the north was doing 5,000 to 6,000 consults a week. MSF has also closed clinics that ran nutrition programs for some 500 severely malnourished children.
Dr. Mahdi said there are no more places in north Mogadishu for people to seek medical help.
"The information that we are getting now, the majority of the streets of north Mogadishu are empty. You can see only a few people who are looking after their houses and property not to be looted."
Militia groups Shebab and Hezb al-Islam, a more political group, launched an unprecedented nationwide offensive in May against the administration of President Sharif Sheikh Ahmed.
The internationally backed president has been holed up in his quarters, protected by African Union peacekeepers as his forces were unable to reassert their authority over the capital.
Most of the people forced from their homes are fleeing to regions south of Mogadishu, and Dr. Mahdi said families are opening up their homes to help them, although the numbers are overwhelming. His wife and two teenage sons are living in south Mogadishu, and he was anxious to get them out.
Many people are heading for the Afgooye corridor, about 30 kilometers west of Mogadishu, where 400,000 victims from previous conflicts have already sought refuge.
The UNHCR said the total number of internally displaced people in Somalia has now reached more than 1.2 million.
Source: National Post, July 09, 2009