As part of his “solidarity visit” to Somalia during the holy Muslim month of Ramadan, UN Secretary‑General António Guterres said on Tuesday that he was on the ground “to ring the alarm on the need for massive international support” for the country. His appeal coincided with a warning from the UN refugee agency, UNHCR, about the ongoing crisis faced by people displaced by violence from Somalia to Ethiopia.
Relocation for the most vulnerable has begun, UNHCR reported, after an up‑turn in violence in northern Somalia’s Lascanood city forced close to 100,000 people to flee to a remote area of Ethiopia’s Somali region in the past two months. “Since clashes started in mid‑February, thousands of people have arrived in the Somali region of Ethiopia seeking safety,” said UNHCR spokesperson Olga Sarrado. “As of last week, 91,000 people had been registered by the Ethiopian authorities.” Although the pace of arrivals has slowed, refugees continue to come, fleeing ongoing violence in Somalia. Ethiopia now hosts nearly 990,000 refugees from neighboring countries, including South Sudan, Somalia, Eritrea and Sudan.
According to UNHCR, most of the refugees arriving from Somalia are women, children and older people, including more than 3,400 unaccompanied and separated children and adolescents. These young refugees have told UNHCR “harrowing stories” of how they became separated from their families when clashes began and have been unable to re‑establish contact with relatives.
A relocation effort is under way, with 1,036 of the most vulnerable people transferred from border areas to a new settlement over the past three days, Sarrado said. The Ethiopian authorities, together with UNHCR and partners, are organizing transportation to a site about 50 kilometres from the border in Mirqaan, Bokh district. The government has allocated 400 hectares where refugees can settle and access existing services such as health care, water and education. UNHCR continues to work with local authorities and leaders to assess gaps in basic services so that support benefits both refugees and Ethiopians. The new site is intended to provide shelter, core relief items, food and water to newly arrived refugees who have been living in precarious conditions. Relocation is necessary because refugees were previously settling at the border, sleeping outdoors; the areas became overcrowded, increasing protection risks.
The fighting in Lascanood, the capital of the Sool region and part of the breakaway territory of Somaliland, pits Somaliland troops against a local clan claiming the town. In a joint statement in February, the United Nations and an international coalition of partners condemned the violence, expressed concern about attacks on civilians and called for “unhindered humanitarian access” to the remote area to “urgently address the needs of those displaced and impacted by the ongoing violence.” In March, UNHCR and humanitarian partners launched a $116 million inter‑agency emergency refugee response plan to meet critical needs of refugees and host communities.
In its latest update, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said the situation has escalated at a time when people in the Sool Region are experiencing unprecedented water shortages due to severe drought and face an elevated risk of disease outbreaks. Both Somalia and neighboring Ethiopia have been hit hard by a historic five‑year drought in the Horn of Africa.
Speaking in Mogadishu on Tuesday at a press encounter with President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud, Guterres said that “Somali people deserve the solidarity of the international community.” He called for urgent funding for the 2023 Humanitarian Response Plan for Somalia, which is currently only 15 percent funded.
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