The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has provided aid to more than 40,000 internally displaced persons (IDPs) in Somalia who live in precarious conditions in dozens of makeshift settlements west of the capital, Mogadishu.

The Security Council today called on Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to continue contingency plans to deploy a possible United Nations peacekeeping operation in strife-torn Somalia and to relocate its political office from neighbouring Kenya.

The top United Nations refugee official, beginning a five-day visit to Yemen, today called on the international community to bolster its assistance to Somali refugees who have reached the Middle East country after making the perilous crossing of the Gulf of Aden.

Burundi's defense minister, Major-General Niyoyankana Germain, spoke with reports Thursday at Aden Adde International Airport in Mogadishu, the Somali capital.

Five Somalis who landed at an airport in the country's northern sub-state of Puntland were arrested Wednesday minutes after they get off an airplane from neighboring Djibouti, a government official told Radio Garowe.

At least three people have been shot to death in the southern Somali port of Kismayo since Tuesday night, local sources reported.

After weeks of political wrangling, a key decision has been reached among major political parties in negotiations organized by the election commission in Somaliland, a separatist region in northern Somalia, an elections official said.

Against a backdrop of drought, soaring food prices and large numbers of people being driven out of their homes by armed conflict, the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) has provided food to 44,000 displaced children in war-ravaged Somalia.

Mrs Faduma Dalel Farah, a mother of four, is a typical victim of the ongoing conflict in the Somali capital, Mogadishu.

A key official in the government of Somalia's breakaway region of Somaliland announced Monday that he has quit mediation efforts to help resolve an election dispute between the Somaliland president and opposition party leaders.

Gangs of armed men have set up roadblocks in and around Somalia's coastal city of Kismayo, 500km south of Mogadishu, causing serious insecurity.

A group of Muslim clerics in central Somalia were briefly arrested and later released by Ethiopian soldiers deployed to help restore order in the chaotic Horn of Africa country, our central regions correspondent reported.

A former warlord allied to Somalia's collapsed Islamic Courts movement has rejected peace talks that opened in Djibouti yesterday.

Amnesty International today condemned the recent threats against humanitarian workers in Somalia made by Muqtar Robow Abu Mansur, a leader and spokesperson of Al-Shabab.

The United Nations Special Envoy to Somalia Ahmedou Ould-Abdallah has expressed his optimism and hope at the willingness of the Somali leaders to put their country and the safety of the Somali people as a top priority.

Talks between the Somali Government and an opposition group began today, and the top United Nations envoy to the war-torn Horn of Africa nation said that he was pleased that leaders have made the well-being and safety of their people their priority.

Representatives of Somalia's Transitional Federal Government (TFG) and an Eritrea-based opposition alliance were gathered in Djibouti on 12 May for peace talks, with the government expressing optimism about the outcome.

Ethiopian troops backing Somalia's interim government have disarmed a former warlord in the central regions, reliable sources tell Garowe Online.

The home of a former Somali warlord-turned-lawmaker was attacked Sunday in the southwestern town of Baidoa, where the country's interim federal parliament sits, officials said.

Interim Somali President Abdullahi Yusuf returned to the capital Mogadishu Sunday unannounced, after a weeks-long trip visiting foreign capitals and meeting with world leaders.

Islamist rebels ambushed an armored convoy transporting Somalia's internal affairs minister Saturday in the outskirts of the capital Mogadishu, sources said.

A notorious warlord in central Somalia has returned to his former seat of power at a provincial capital after being forced to flee in April by Islamist guerrillas.

NUSOJ strongly condemns today's arrest of Director of Somali Broadcasting Corporation (SBC) Mowlid Haji Abdi by the police of Puntland Regional State in northeastern Somalia.

For several years after war erupted in Côte d'Ivoire in 2002, children were recruited to fight on all sides of the conflict.

The National Union of Somali Journalists (NUSOJ) strongly condemns today's arrest of Director of Somali Broadcasting Corporation (SBC) Mowlid Haji Abdi by the police of Puntland Regional State in northeastern Somalia.