Drought, conflict force more Somalis into Kenya

About 18,000 Somalis have sought refuge in Kenya since the beginning of this year after fleeing drought and mounting insecurity in Somalia's capital, Mogadishu, the United Nations refugee agency said on Monday. The latest arrivals bring to 148,000 the number of Somali refugees in three camps around the Dadaab area in Kenya's Northeastern Province, according to Emmanuel Nyabera, spokesman for the Kenyan office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). "We are mobilising resources in an effort to better attend to the new arrivals", whose most immediate needs were shelter and food, he said. Last week, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) said 2.1 million people in Somalia were still experiencing food shortages because of the severe drought in the Horn of Africa earlier this year. The food crisis in Somalia was expected to continue, the FAO warned, saying that this year’s main cereal harvest was expected to be poor because most of the drought-hit areas had received insufficient rainfall. Expressing concern over the recent escalation of factional conflict in Mogadishu and the reported military build-up around the south-central town of Baidoa, the seat of Somalia's transitional government, the FAO noted: "As the bulk of food crops are cultivated in southern Somalia, any disruption of harvest activities would worsen the ongoing humanitarian crisis." UNHCR said an inter-agency assessment mission had on Sunday gone to eastern Ethiopia to verify reports that groups of Somalis had arrived there after fleeing conflict in Mogadishu. The Union of Islamic Courts took control of Mogadishu and several areas in southern Somalia after defeating an alliance of secular armed factions who controlled the city for more than a decade. Fighting between the two groups erupted in February and only subsided in early June when the Islamic group routed the war lords. Somalia has been without a functioning government since the overthrow in 1991 of the administration led by Muhammad Siyad Barre. The Transitional Federal Government created in 2004 is still struggling to overcome internal divisions and establish its authority in the country. jn/mw