SOMALIA FACING 'HIDDEN GENOCIDE'!

The UN envoy to Somalia, Ahmedou Ould Abdallah, has said there is a "hidden genocide" taking place in the country.

Mr Abdallah spoke as the African Union's peace and security council held urgent talks on how to boost the peacekeeping force there.

Ethiopia says its 3,000 troops will withdraw by the end of the year, which some fear will lead to a power vacuum.

The AU force already in Mogadishu is too small to resist resurgent Islamist and nationalist fighters.

UN head Ban Ki-moon last week rejected calls for UN peacekeepers to be sent. He said the situation in Somalia was too dangerous and there was no peace to keep.

SOMALIA'S WOES 3m need food aid - a third of the population 1m displaced Government only controls Baidoa Islamist groups control much of the country No effective government since 1991 Piracy on the rise

"The Somali problem is a problem for the whole region," said Mr Abdallah, the UN special envoy to Somalia, reports the AFP news agency. "There is a hidden genocide in Somalia which has sacrificed entire generations."

Somalia has not had a functioning national government since 1991.

Ethiopian troops intervened two years ago to oust Islamists from the capital and install the internationally recognised government. But that government is now in disarray and different Islamist groups now control much of southern Somalia.

On Sunday, the East African regional group, Igad, decided to impose sanctions on the Somali President Abdullahi Yusuf, after he tried to sack Prime Minister Nur Hassan Hussein.

Parliament last week said the prime minister's dismissal was illegal and gave him an overwhelming vote of confidence.

The Ethiopian troops, a weak AU force and troops loyal to the interim Somali government are limited to parts of Mogadishu and the central town of Baidoa, where parliament is based.

The AU ministers now have the task of trying to beef up the AU mission in Somalia, which will no longer have the comfort of knowing it can call for Ethiopian back-up when needed, says the BBC's Elizabeth Blunt in Addis Ababa, where the AU meeting is being held.

On Sunday, AU commission head Jean Ping raised the prospect that Nigeria, Uganda and Burundi could each send a battalion - about 850 troops - to bolster the 3,200 peacekeepers already in Mogadishu.

But the AU commissioner for peace and security Ramtane Lamamra on Monday said a possible offer by Nigeria to provide troops needed further clarification.

He also said he did not yet have all the elements he needed to make a firm recommendation on the future of the AU's peacekeeping force in Somalia, Amisom.

The AU special representative for Somalia Nicolas Bwakira said the offers from Burundi and Uganda, whose troops make up the existing force, were conditional on:

• A clear indication that the UN would eventually take over

• The establishment of an inclusive government in Mogadishu

• Receiving support from the international community

Our correspondent says none of these conditions has so far been met.

The foreign ministers of the six-member Inter-governmental Authority on Development (Igad) came out in support of Prime Minister Nur in the political conflict with President Yusuf.

After their meeting, the group said: "[Igad] regrets the attempts by President Yusuf to unconstitutionally appoint a new prime minister that Igad does not recognise, and decides to impose sanctions on him and his associates immediately."

Mr Yusuf had said he sacked the prime minister a week ago because the government had been "paralysed by corruption, inefficiency and treason" and failed to bring peace.

The lack of an effective government has led to the rise of piracy off the Somali coast.

Fighting between pro-government forces and Islamist militias has led more than a million people to flee their homes.

Aid agencies say some three million people need food aid - about a third of the population - but attacks by pirates and militias make it extremely difficult to deliver humanitarian assistance.

BBC NEWS REPORT.