SOMALIS TRAGIC-EVICTION STATISTICS

The number of Somalis left homeless has surged this year as thousands who had already fled war, drought and floods were forcibly evicted from mostly makeshift homes, the Norwegian Refugee Council [NRC] said.

The aid group in a report published on Tuesday, said one of the main factors driving people out of their homes was property developers requisitioning land, often without warning, during a building boom in the capital Mogadishu.

More than 200,000 Somalis or one in 60 of the population, were forcibly evicted from their homes in January- July, more than double the number in the same period last year, the group said.

NRC said most evictions were done without  the   due process, including without prior notice,    and called    on the government to address the problem by developing land policies and improving access to land for people who were forced from their homes.

Many had fled to urban areas after being displaced natural disasters and conflicts in the country.

The aid group said  Somali authorities and landowners were evicting people from public and private land mainly in battle-scarred Mogadishu, which is seeing a building boom.

''These people are already in a vulnerable position. They have nowhere to go,'' Evelyn Aero, NRC's  adviser for information, counselling and legal  assistance, said

A farmer with eight children who was interviewed by the NRC said she was no at home Mogadishu when her family was forced out.

''i came back to see my children on the street,''  said Halimo Sidow, who had fled drought last year in the  Lower Shabelle region in southern Somalia.

A devastating drought last year and this year's floods forced,  ''a massive migration to urban areas,'' NRC said.

In 2017, the  United Nations estimated that more than half the population of  12 million  needed food aid.

A similar drought in 2011, exacerbated by years of war that began in 1991 sparked the world's last famine, which killed 260,000  people. [Agencies].