One million homeless
Sweden automatically grants asylum to anyone from an area in which something "more like your traditional civil war" exists, where "rebellion forces have territorial control in a part of the city, the country or the region," senior immigration official Dan Eliasson told AFP news agency."This is not the case in Mogadishu," said Mr Eliasson, the general director of the Swedish Migration Board.Fighting between Ethiopian forces backing the interim government and Islamist insurgents has killed many hundreds of people, although no exact figure is available.At least 17 people were killed in a mortar attack on Mogadishu's main market on Thursday.The UN says one million people are living rough in Somalia - including 60% of Mogadishu's population.About 200,000 people have fled the city in the last month.A spokesman for the Swedish Migration Board told the BBC that he accepted the UN's description of Somalia as the world's worst humanitarian disaster but that asylum seekers would have to prove they are personally threatened to be accepted by Sweden.The ruling is likely to be challenged in the courts.
As in the days of Noah....