The UN refugee agency (UNHCR) and its partners said Wednesday they are rushing emergency humanitarian aid to displaced Somalis in a small town of Afgooye, 30 km west of the bullet-riddled Mogadishu where the number of displaced Somalis has exceeded 40,000.

In a statement issued in Nairobi, the UNHCR said they have distributed urgent relief supplies to more than 35,000 Somalis fleeing fighting in nearby Mogadishu, and more aid is on the way.

But the statement said the town, 30 km west of the strife-torn capital, has been nearly overwhelmed by a constant stream of desperate people in search of help and safety.

"Civilians are still fleeing Mogadishu at a very high rate," a UNHCR staff member in Afgooye said.

"At least half of the capital is deserted, slowly turning it into a ghost city. I have walked in some neighborhoods where you meet no one except for a few individuals that some families have left behind to guard their houses."

According to UNHCR, many Afgooye residents have already taken in friends and relatives from the capital and the town has run out of shelter space.

"Many families are living under UNHCR plastic sheeting, giving them some protection from the weather. Prices in local shops have risen dramatically because of the huge demand. Some local landowners are even charging rent to people seeking shelter under their trees," it said.

Heavy shelling continued in the bullet-infested Somali capital Mogadishu this week as Ethiopian troops clashed with Somali clan militiamen and Islamist fighters who were ousted from the capital in January this year.

The UN refugee agency says more than 340,000 people have fled the fighting since February when the Ethiopian-backed transitional government chased away members of the Supreme Council of Islamic Courts (SCIC) from the capital in January.

The new figure represents nearly a third of the population of the capital and is significantly higher than previous estimates, the UN said.

"People living in Afgooye are scared because the fighting might spread along the road from Mogadishu," the statement said quoting a staff member.

"They also fear the increasing theft and burglary and the gangs that roam the town, which used to be safe. Now your mobile phone might be stolen at gunpoint, sometimes even in daylight, and some houses are broken into during the night."

"People in Afgooye are extremely poor, most of them live on less than a dollar a day, and now they can no longer afford the prices which rise day after day," the UNHCR staff member said.

"Some shop owners and landowners make a lot of money by demanding unaffordable prices. Along the road between Mogadishu and Afgooye, those who own land compel displaced people to pay rent in exchange for sitting under trees."

The UNHCR said about 2,400 members of the minority Eyle clan, a group of former hunters and nut gatherers who are marginalized and often discriminated against, are now stuck on the outskirts of Mogadishu and in a desperate situation, the agency's staff member said.

"They were living close to the stadium, an area which has been absolutely leveled by the fighting," he said.

"Now they would like to go back to their native area close to Baidoa, but they can't afford the rising price of transportation and it is too far to walk."

The latest development came as the UN warned this week of a looming humanitarian disaster in Somalia which has been without a central rule for over 16 years.

It said ongoing clashes have made it hard to deliver aid to the displaced. Most people lacked food and water and hundreds had already died from cholera and diarrhoea, UN Humanitarian Coordinator Eric Laroche said.

Source: Xinhua