Humanitarian organization Doctors Without
Borders (MSF) said Tuesday it had been forced to close a clinic in Somali
capital Mogadishu due to increased violence.
MSF said a surge in fighting had led to "unacceptable security risks for
patients and staff" and forced it to shut down the clinic in the
Wardigley/Hodan area of Mogadishu.
"The fighting around the clinic has significantly increased," Marcel
Langenbach, head of the MSF Emergency Team said in statement.
"Several mortars have landed very close by and recently a rocket propelled
grenade actually entered the top floor of our building but thankfully did not
detonate," he continued.
MSF said that while it continued to deliver health services throughout much of
Somali, thousands of people would now be left without care.
UN agencies say over 6,000 civilians have died in an insurgency that exploded
in early 2007 after Ethiopian troops kicked out the Islamist regime and helped
reinstate the transitional government.
Almost one million Somalis have fled fighting in the capital Mogadishu and are
now living in camps outside the city or have crossed the border to Kenya.
Somalia has been plagued by chaos and clan-based civil war since dictator
Mohamed Siad Barre was toppled in 1991, dpa
reported.