Frontline News
© UNHCR/M.Sheik Nor
Since May,
violence in the Somali capital, Mogadishu, has forced more than 250,000 people
to flee their homes. Many have sought shelter in nearby Afgooye.
“I had no choice but to flee”
“I was afraid of being killed in the bomb blasts. One of the explosions injured my leg. I had to flee from my home in Mogadishu on foot, with my leg hurting. On my way I saw many people had been killed or injured. Everything in my home district was damaged or destroyed by fire, so I couldn’t take anything with me.” Hilowley, a mother of seven, Alla Amin settlement for internally displaced people, Afgooye, central Somalia.
Since May, renewed clashes between government forces and armed opposition groups have forced more than a quarter-of-a-million Somalis out of their homes in Mogadishu. Like many other residents of the Somali capital, Hilowley decided to run for her life with the rest of her family. She ended up in the so-called Afgooye corridor, some 30 kilometres west of Mogadishu.
Background Info
More than 500,000 internally displaced people live in makeshift shelters in and around Afgooye, making it the area with the highest concentration of internally displaced people in the world. Every day, new settlements are established despite the lack of shelter material, water and other basic services.
Somalia’s civil war, which started in 1991, has generated massive movements of people within Somalia (1.5 million) and to neighbouring countries (Kenya, Yemen, Ethiopia, Burundi, Uganda, Djibouti).
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Since the beginning of the year more than 100,000 Somali civilians have been forced to flee their homes in southern and central Somalia. Some are searching for safety not far from Mogadishu while many others have fled to neighbouring countries. Just $10 could change somebody's life.
