At least 12,000 civilian residents of Mogadishu have fled their homes in the Somali capital since last weekend because of a surge in fighting between Islamist insurgents and government forces, the United Nations refugee agency said on Thursday.
The UN said in a news release that insurgents shelled an African Union peacekeeping base in Mogadishu on Tuesday, prompting heavy return fire and tank incursions into a market area viewed as a rebel stronghold.
They said the attack was retribution for the shelling of a market on the previous day that killed at least 42 people.
According to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), half of the newly displaced have found shelters in different neighbourhoods within Mogadishu, while the remainders have escaped to the town of Afgooye, about 30 kilometres away.
UNHCR Spokesperson Catherine Weibel said that many residents were in panic as the shelling stepped up at the weekend and they left their homes to avoid being caught in the crossfire.
Afgooye is already home to an estimated 350,000 internally displaced persons (IDPs), mostly from Mogadishu, where the fighting between the government forces and the insurgents has been particularly intense over the past year.
Weibel said the UNHCR and non-governmental organizations operating in the region expect that the number of displaced would keep rising as the fighting is continuing.

She added that humanitarian workers are finding it difficult to reach those in need and distribute aid because the city is so insecure.
The latest fighting is taking place despite the signing of a UN-brokered peace deal between the Transitional Federal Government and the rebel Alliance for the Re-liberation of Somalia in June that was supposed to end the armed clashes.
Somalia has not had a functioning national government since 1991 and the current fighting has combined with a drought in parts of the country to create a humanitarian crisis.
At least three million people, or more than a third of the population, are now dependent on aid.