Monitoring Desk
NAIROBI: The United Nations (UN’s) emergency response agency has said that clashes have forced over 185,000 people to flee their homes in a disputed border town in Somalia’s separated region of Somaliland.
Somaliland has claimed independence from Somalia since 1991 but has never been recognized internationally. Somaliland is often seen as a flare of stability in a chaotic region.
However, political unease has surged in recent months, with last week’s deadly violence between government forces and militias loyal to Somalia in the disputed town of Las Anod.
In a statement on Thursday, the UN’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said reports of heavy fighting were continuing to come despite a declared ceasefire.
“Over 185,000 people have been displaced,” the UN agency said, with aid workers struggling to appropriately respond to the situation due to a lack of resources.
UN says many of the displaced people seek shelter under trees or schools
According to OCHA, children and women accounted for an estimated 89 percent of the displaced population. Many reportedly seek shelter under trees or inside schools, which have been forced to close due to the violence.
OCHA said that Las Anod General Hospital officials had reported 57 deaths, with 401 wounded victims treated at four different hospitals.
In addition to the thousands of people displaced inside Somaliland, over 60,000 other people have fled to Ethiopia’s Somali region to avoid the violence, the refugee agency said on Friday.
“Traumatized and exhausted, they have arrived with very little, only taking what they could carry,” UNHCR spokesperson Olga Sarrado Mur said at a press briefing in Geneva.
“An average of 1,000 people continue to enter Ethiopia each day,” the spokesperson said. She said that there is a lack of resources in the Somali region.
