Renewed outbreak of fighting in Bulo Hawa

Renewed fighting has reportedly broken out in the border town of Bulo Hawa, in the north of Gedo Region, southwestern Somalia, humanitarian sources in the Kenyan border town of Mandera told IRIN on Wednesday morning. "There is an exchange of heavy weapons fire in Bulo Hawa as we speak, with stray rounds landing in Mandera," one of them said. "What little of its population was left in the town has now crossed over to the Kenyan side." According to the source, Bulo Hawa, with an estimated population of 20,000, "is now like ghost town. People have been streaming out of the town, since early this morning." It is not clear what brought about this fresh bout of fighting, which started at around 09:30 a.m. local time (06:30 GMT) on Wednesday, and continued until midday. According to the sources, the fighting is between an alliance of the Marehan sub-clans of Rer Hasan, Hawarsame and Habar Ya'qub, which are supported by the opposition Somali Reconciliation and Restoration Council on the one hand, and on the other hand by sub-clans sympathetic to the Transitional National Government. The Marehan clan dominates Gedo Region. The office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) had on Tuesday sent extra staff to help relocate Somali refugees originating from Bulo Hawa who had been living in Mandera since the beginning of April, the UNHCR spokesman, Peter Kessler, told reporters in Geneva on Tuesday. The refugees, mainly women, children and old people, fled inter-clan fighting in Bulo Hawa after fighting first broke out there among rival factions of the Marehan clan. To cope with the increasing pressures at the border UNHCR had sent in three staff members, with another four due to be sent on Thursday, said Kessler at a press briefing. The extra staff were expected to launch the temporary transfer of some 10,000 of the refugees currently camping near the border to a site farther from the clan fighting in Bulo Hawa, he said. The agency was also preparing to send relief supplies to the refugees later this week, he said. Meanwhile, humanitarian sources in Mandera told IRIN that district officials had on Tuesday been driving around with a bull horn, "warning refugees to leave Mandera by 06:00 a.m. local time [03:00 GMT] on Wednesday". According to this source, the officials said the ultimatum targeted refugees who had left the temporary camp near the border "and were in Mandera proper". A UNHCR official in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, told IRIN, that the agency was concerned over reports of this activity, but added that "up to now the Kenyan government has been cooperative" as regards this issue. According to Kessler, UNHCR has been negotiating with the government for permission for the refugees to remain temporarily in and around Mandera in the hope that the situation in their home areas would soon improve, enabling them to return. "The refugees themselves do not wish to move and prefer to wait close by in the expectation that the fighting will soon subside," he said. A humanitarian source in Mandera said the medical condition of the refugees was becoming serious. "At least three children of some 50 children who were admitted to hospital suffering from diarrhoea have died."