HAGADERA, Kenya -- The pirates get the headlines, but what drove Habibo Kune and her teenage son out of Somalia and into this sprawling, sand-blown refugee camp was a different group of men with guns.Islamist militants, who have waged a two-year, blood-soaked insurgency, continue to battle pro-government forces for territory throughout southern Somalia. Since January, a surge in violence has driven more than 25,000 people into the camps of eastern Kenya - already overflowing with two decades' worth of Somali refugees - which has badly strained one of the world's largest humanitarian operations.
In Hagadera, the largest of three camps, new arrivals like Kune are crowding with relatives in bare, tree-branch huts covered in plastic sheets or fraying strips of clothing. The refugees say that the insurgents - a wholly separate phenomenon from the secular, ransom-hungry pirates - have imposed religious law on their towns and killed civilians who resisted. The pirates cause problems in the ocean," said Kune, 40, seated on the dirt floor of a hut, her round face creased with worry. "But the Islamists cause many more problems inside the country."
Relief agencies are concerned that anti-piracy efforts are diverting attention and resources from the plight of these refugees and hundreds of thousands in even more desperate camps in Somalia. While countries pledged $213 million last month to beef up security forces in the East African nation, the United Nations' request for $918 million for relief programs is still two-thirds unmet.
A funding shortfall also forced the U.N. World Food Program to reduce rations in the camps - the refugees' only source of food - by 17 percent last month. After a $10 million internal loan, the agency expects to resume full food distribution within weeks...more..http://www.newsobserver.com/1635/story/1521470.html
At least 65 dead in Mogadishu clashes
Clashes between rival Islamist groups have killed at least 65 people and wounded more than 190 others in three days of battles in Somalia's capital Mogadishu , according to witnesses and hospital sources.
Somalia's interim Government is struggling with a powerful insurgency in one of the world's most dangerous countries, where fighting since late 2006 has killed thousands and forced more than a million more from their homes.
Hundreds of Islamists loyal to the Government and opposition Terrorist Al Shabaab militiamen fought with heavy machine guns and mortars in northern Mogadishu over the weekend.
"We killed an uncountable number of Government fighters and moderate Islamists. Their dead bodies lie in the streets," Sheikh Mohamed Ibrahim Bilal, a senior al Shabaab official, told Reuters...more..http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/05/11/2565977.htm
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