More Somali refugees swarm into Kenya

The UN refugee agency said more Somali refugees are fleeing to neighboring Kenya in large numbers as tensions rise between powerful Islamic Courts and the interim government in the lawless Horn of African nation.

In a statement received here on Wednesday, the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) also warned of deportation of migrants by Somali authorities in the northeastern port of Bosasso.

According to the UN agency, more than 2,000 people have arrived in neighboring Kenya since last Friday, overwhelming reception and screening facilities at the two countries' frontier.

The UN said at least 1,300 refugees on Monday jammed a temporary reception center set up by the UNHCR on the Kenyan- Somali border, adding to the 30,000 Somalis who have already crossed into Kenya this year.

Elders in southern and central Somalia told UN officials that the surge, due to fears for widespread conflict in the regions and crop failures, was unlikely to end in the near future, the statement said.

The refugees are fleeing fighting between the Transitional Federal Government and the Supreme Council of Islamic Courts (SCIC), which are contesting control of Buur Hakaba, a strategic town between Baidoa where the UN-backed-government is based and the capital Mogadishu which is held by the SCIC.

Elders from Dobley, a Somali town close to the border with Kenya, have told senior UN staff operating in the country that they are aware of another 3,000 or 4,000 people en route to the border.

Three refugee camps established in Dadaab in Kenya now house 157,000 people with more people expected to swarm into the camp as fighting between the two rival groups escalate in the Horn of African nation which has been without effective government for more than a decade.

The flaring tension in Somalia has cast doubts over the planned resumption of the third round of peace talks between the government and the SCIC in Khartoum on October 30.

Meanwhile, the UNHCR said that local authorities in the northeast of Somalia have deported or plan to deport as many as 1, 800 people since the weekend.

UN agencies and other organizations working in the port city of Bossasso have requested the Somali authorities to temporarily suspend the deportations until the UNHCR can determine if there are any asylum-seekers who might have been wrongly included.

Source: Xinhua