Photo: Lynsey Addario/MSF

Displaced (file photo): Somalis are forced to leave their homes due to conflict, drought and lately due to insecurity in southern and central parts of the country.

The United Nations High Commission for Refugees has announced it is to open another new camp in Ethiopia to deal with Somalis fleeing conflict and insecurity.

A spokesperson for UNHCR in Geneva, Andrej Mahecic, said that with people still arriving at Dollo Ado, "the Ethiopian Government has authorized the opening of a sixth site and land for this has been designated between the town of Kole and Kobe camp, some 54 kilometers north of Dollo Ado town." Two weeks ago, an all-weather airstrip was opened at Dollo Ado, significantly upgrading access for relief access. Funded by the United States, it was built by a field-engineering team from the UN World Food Program, working closely with Ethiopian civil aviation and road authorities. The spokesperson said this was "an important and major improvement for humanitarian organizations working in Dollo Ado as adverse weather conditions had often rendered the old airstrip unusable." Dollo Ado is the second largest refugee complex in the world after Dadaab in Kenya; and last week, according to UNHCR, the numbers passed the 170,000 mark, with new arrivals citing fear of harassment and forced recruitment by armed groups which still significant rural areas of Somalia. The problems have been exacerbated by last year's drought and famine which uprooted an additional half million people. Overall, the number of Somali refugees in neighboring countries has reached than a million. Of these Ethiopia hosts some 214,000 displaced Somalia, in the five camps at Dollo Ado as well as others further north at Jijiga.