Reuters informs, UNHCR warns

By Magda

On Sunday February 22 2009, the UK-based and Canadian-controlled news service Reuters provided a report about the current conflicts in Somalia and Congo, and the crises of 350,000 refugees produced due to these situations. The war in Somalia has started in 1991, yet the situation has been the worse past two years due to the attacks of the Islamist insurgents of the Western-backed government. According to Reuters “Somalia has the highest number of internal and external displacement” ever since 1991.

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On 21^st of July 2009, UNHCR spokesperson Ron Redmon talked at the Palais des Nations in Geneva about the current situation in Somalia. He pointed out the massive refugee movement from Mogadishu, where about 20,000 refugees fled the capital within only last two weeks, joining other 400,000 internally displaced persons in the south west. However, these people lack the adequate shelters, sanitation facilities and drinking water. Redmon then goes on about the Somali refugees who found a shelter in the UNHCR-run Dadaab complex, compelled from three Kenyan sites. Since January of this year 39,000 new refugees came from Somalia, although Kenya-Somalia borders are officially pronounced to be closed to migration. UNHCR for the first time openly showed their concerns with the health risks and the overcrowding, since the camp originally designed for 90,000 hosted back in July more than 286,000 refugees.
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