October 04, 2008	Saturday	Shawwal 04, 1429

GENEVA: At least 80 civilians were killed and more than 100 others injured in violence in the Somalian capital Mogadishu in the last week of September, the United Nations said on Friday.

Some 110 people have been admitted to two main hospitals in Mogadishu, but “the number of those wounded is suspected to be higher,” said Elisabeth Byrs, spokeswoman of the UN’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).

About 15,000 people have also been displaced following the fighting, some fleeing to safer districts in the city, while others fled to the Afgooye corridor where already 300,000 internally displaced people have sought refuge.

OCHA had appealed for $646 million to help 3.2 million people or 43 per cent of Somalia’s population, which is in “dire need of humanitarian assistance”. But Byrs said that the fund is still short of $231 million. The UN refugee agency had earlier described the fighting in Mogadishu as the “most violent since February 2007”, shortly after the toppling of hardline Islamists.—AFP