Somalia: Hundreds of families flee to Kenya to escape fighting

Missionary International Service News Agency (MISNA) - The fighting and enduring state of insecurity are prompting many families to abandon the northern areas of Mogadishu, which have seen the most fighting, in favor of Bardere, an area in the Gedo region in the south.

At least 570 families, says Radio Shabelle, have reached Bardere on mini-buses intending to head toward Kenya, where there are already thousands of Somali refugees. The fugitives are largely women and children.

From Mogadishu, the latest news suggest that three people have been killed so far, a woman and two youths. Meanwhile, just days after the international conference on Somalia held in Istanbul, which ended with the reaffirmation of the support of the international community for the government of transition and for president Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed, there is a new candidate to fill the role of parliamentary speaker, a post left vacant by Sheikh Aden Mohamed Nor Madobe.

The candidate is the minister of finance and deputy prime minister Sharif Hassan Sheikh Aden, who has resigned from his current post in order to run.

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