20100528
press tv

The UN says over 60 civilians have been killed and 14,300 others have been displaced in recent clashes between government troops and opposition forces in Mogadishu.

"According to information we are seeing in field reports, at least 60 people have been killed and more than 50 wounded and injured in street clashes," AFP quoted Andrej Mahecic, a spokesman of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, as saying.

Tens of thousands who have fled their homes are still trapped in the embattled Somali capital and are either living with relatives in overcrowded conditions or sleeping under makeshift tents in the streets, said Mahecic.

He said women and children are forced to beg in the streets or markets to make a living.

Somalia has not had a functioning government since warlords toppled President Siad Barre in 1991. Thousands of people have died and thousands more have been displaced in the nearly two decades of chaos.