Mogadishu, (insidesomalia.org) - “Newly displaced people arrive on daily bases at the displaced camps stretched along the road linking Mogadishu and Afgoi, a town 43km south west of Mogadishu, says Hasino Farah Abdi”, a coordinator at a Furqaan camp near Elasha where most of the people displaced by the fighting in the capital sought shelter.

“The new influxes of families have arrived in the last three or four days but it is hard to allocate them because of lack of space in the camp” she said.

The approach of the rainy season makes the need for shelter material more pressing as families living under the trees are exposed to the scorching sun, heavy rains and chilling nights.

Malaria and diarrhea are the most common diseases while sanitation is very poor accompanied with less food and lack of clean water

“Mothers and children in the displaced camps are hardly alive by malnutrition” Fadumo Abdirahman, a social worker speaking to InsideSomalia.org at the Elasha neighborhood.

An additional 10,000 people have reportedly fled Somalia’s capital Mogadishu due to ongoing fighting which has claimed the lives of at least six people and injured some 50 others this week alone, according to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).

The Office estimates that some 256,000 people have fled since October. Most of the internally displaced are being sheltered in camps on the Mogadishu- Afgoi road.

Somalia, which has lacked a functioning government since 1991, has been wracked by violence in recent months which has displaced around 1 million people and has caused some 3 million to flee the country as refugees.

“The situation in Somalia is dangerous and becoming more so each day,” reported the top UN envoy to the country, Ahmedou Ould-Abdallah, to the Security Council on Monday.

He urged the international community to draw up a road map towards lasting peace and stability in Somalia, warning that continuing with “business as usual” would have grim consequences for the country and the region.

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