The Security Council on Monday asked the UN chief to begin contingency planning to send UN peacekeepers back to Somalia for the first time since 1995.
Battles between insurgents and Ethiopian-backed government troops in Somalia's capital over the past month have killed more than 1,000 people and driven nearly 400,000 people from their homes, humanitarian groups said.
The fighting, which the Red Cross has called the worst in Somalia in 15 years, began when Somali and Ethiopian troops launched a major military operation in Mogadishu in late March to crush the remnants of an Islamic insurgency. The city's streets have been calm in recent days and some residents had returned.
In its statement on Monday, the 15-member Security Council asked UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to issue a report by the middle of next month on the contingency planning for a possible UN peacekeeping mission. Such a mission is unlikely to deploy soon.
"Let's be clear, the Security Council report sets out the conditionality for deploying a force ... and there [first] should be sufficient peace to keep. At the moment, those conditions are not met," said British UN Ambassador Emyr Jones Parry, whose term as the rotating council president ended on Monday.
"Our hope is that the situation in Mogadishu is stabilizing," he said. "If the situation continues to improve sufficiently, the UN would then be prepared to consider whether or not it should deploy."
In Eritrea, however, a top Islamic leader and Somalia's former parliamentary speaker warned on Monday that the fighting against Ethiopian troops will continue until they are driven from the country.
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