By Abdi Sheikh
MOGADISHU (Reuters) - Conflict in Somalia has killed 2,136civilians so far this year, bringing the death toll since anIslamist-led insurgency began in early 2007 to 8,636, a localhuman rights group said on Thursday.
The Mogadishu-based Elman Peace and Human RightsOrganisation said it had also recorded 11,790 civilian injuriessince the start of last year, when rebels began attacking theSomali government and its Ethiopian military allies.
"If the international community does not intervene to stopthe massacre in the country, Somalis will soon become extinct,"the group's chairman, Sudan Ali Ahmed, told Reuters.
As well as civilian deaths, hundreds of fighters on bothsides have also died, locals say.
The insurgency -- the latest in a cycle of conflict sincethe 1991 fall of a military dictator -- has compounded theeffects of drought and poverty to create what aid workers callone of the worst humanitarian crises in the world.
"Somalia is no longer on the verge of catastrophe, thedisaster is happening now," Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF)director of operations Bruno Jochum told a Nairobi pressconference in the latest international warning.
The United Nations says one million Somalis -- out of atotal population of about nine million -- are living asinternal refugees in the Horn of Africa nation.
But the Elman rights group, in figures given to Reuters,put that number at 1.9 million. Tens of thousands of Somalishave also fled to neighbouring Ethiopia and Kenya.
The governments of Ethiopia and Somalia dispute the numbersof dead and displaced, saying rights groups are acceptingIslamist "propaganda" and exaggerating the situation.
"NO HOPE"
Mogadishu, the epicentre of the conflict, has seen anupsurge in fighting since a U.N.-brokered peace agreement atthe start of this month. Hardline Islamists rejected the pact,signed by the Somali government and some opposition members.
"More weapons from unknown sources are pouring into thecountry and there is no hope of life unless the politicalrivals reach lasting peace," rights campaigner Ahmed said.
"The death-toll and the number of internally displacedpersons are increasing day-after-day."
MSF said attacks on aid workers had risen in Somalia, asthe humanitarian situation quickly worsened.
Jochum said malnutrition rates had soared since March.
"We are also facing increasing attacks on humanitarianworkers which have forced MSF, and other organisations, towithdraw international staff in the last few months and weeks."
In the last three months, admissions to MSF clinics havequadrupled and are now doubling on a weekly basis, he said.
"Last week alone, over 500 severely malnourished childrenwere admitted to our nutritional programs," Jochum said.
Invoking the Geneva Convention on refugees, KennethLavelle, MSF head of mission in Somalia, called for neighboursto open their borders.
"The Somali population are trapped in their country," hetold Reuters. "They have no choice. They have to stay there andsuffer ... they've got no escape."
Although the Kenyan border is officially closed, the UnitedNations says 4,000 Somalis a month in fact cross the long andporous border.
(Additional reporting by Hereward Holland in Nairobi;Writing by Andrew Cawthorne; Editing by Matthew Tostevin)
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