GENEVA, Aug 3 (Reuters) - Somali children are at risk from unexploded ordnance around the capital Mogadishu, where daily fighting has forced 27,000 people to flee since June, U.N. agencies said on Friday. Bombing and gun battles in the capital prevent families from working or buying food, and children are out of school because of the dangers and closed roads, the United Nations refugee agency (UNHCR) said. Some 6,000 people fled Mogadishu in June and another 21,000 in July amid renewed fighting between the Ethiopian-backed Somali Transitional Federal Government and insurgents. "Many of the people who fled told UNHCR that life was more unbearable than ever in Mogadishu because of the daily violence, making it dangerous to leave their homes," spokesman Ron Redmond told journalists in Geneva. Veronique Taveau of the U.N. Children's Fund (UNICEF) said at least 20 children had died in the past month as a result of fighting in Mogadishu. They include five children who died on their way to a mosque in July when one touched unexploded ordnance, she said, noting mines and other dangerous munitions are spread across many parts of the city, including residential areas. "Many children in the country today cannot simply play outdoors or walk to a mosque without the persistent threat of being killed," she said. Mogadishu has been rocked by violence since January when the interim government and Ethiopian troops drove out Islamists who ruled much of southern Somalia for six months of last year. The UNHCR's Redmond said that some 125,000 of the 400,000 civilians who fled the city early this year had returned to Mogadishu, partly because conditions outside the capital were also very dangerous.
