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 2008, 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 has rejected calls for UN peacekeepers to be sent. He said the situation in Somalia was too dangerous and there was no peace to keep. "The Somali problem is a problem for the whole region," said Mr Abdallah, the UN special envoy to Somalia. "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.
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Somalia Revisited
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