DADAAB, Kenya, June 4 (Reuters) - Somalis fleeing war and hunger at home are pouring into neighbouring Kenya at an average rate of 7,000 per month, swelling what is already the world's largest refugee settlement, U.N. staff said on Thursday.
Eighteen years of civil conflict in Somalia show no sign of abatement, with foreign militants joining Islamist rebels seeking to topple a new government that is the 15th attempt to restore central rule since 1991.
About 80,000 people have died in the last two years alone, while a million Somalis are refugees in their own land, three million need urgent food aid and hundreds of thousands have crossed borders into Djibouti, Ethiopia and Kenya.
"We have been receiving an average of 7,000 refugees (per month) since January and from what they tell us, the major reason why they leave their country is increasing insecurity," said Anne Campbell, head of the U.N. refugee agency UNHCR's sub-office in Dadaab, north Kenya...more..http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L41038416.htm
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