Hundreds flee violence near Kismayo

Some 500 people fleeing factional fighting near the southern Somali port city of Kismayo crossed the border into Kenya at the end of last week and are now living with local communities on the Kenyan side of the frontier, a spokesman for the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) said on Monday.

Most of the Somalis came from the village of Dhobley, not far from the border, and entered Kenya through the border town of Liboi on Friday and early Saturday, UNHCR spokesman Emmanuel Nyabera told IRIN.

A UNHCR assessment team that visited the area at the weekend found that five families had settled with local families around Liboi, while another 300-500 people had been accommodated by the local community in a village called Dadaj Bulla, Nyabera said. The refugees told the UNHCR they were willing to go back home once the security situation improved in Dhobley.

A local journalist in Kismayo told IRIN by telephone that many dwellings in Dhobley were burned down during last week's fighting that pitted forces of the Juba Valley Alliance, the faction that controls Kismayo, against those loyal to warlord General Muhammad Sa'id Hirsi "Morgan".

Another source said that fighting had stopped and that some families which fled the violence had started returning to their homes. "Many people who left the villages of Bulo Haji, Halima A'dey and Hosingo are returning," he said.

In another development, the newly formed Somali parliament has postponed the election of the country's president, which had been scheduled for 22 September, to10 October, saying the candidates needed more time to prepare for the elections.

The president will be elected by members of the Somali transitional federal parliament. Last week, the members of parliament elected businessman Shariff Hassan Sheikh Adan as the assembly's speaker.

The Somali National Charter, adopted by delegates at a reconciliation conference in September 2003, mandates the speaker to preside over the election of the president, who in turn appoints a prime minister who will then form a government.

Once the federal government is fully constituted, it will move to Mogadishu and embark on its challenging mandate of rehabilitation and the restoration of law and order in a country ravaged by factional warfare since 1991, when the regime of Muhammad Siyad Barre was toppled.