The United Nation refugee agency urged Saudi Arabia to stop deporting Somali refugees to Mogadishu, where Al-Qaeda linked group and Somali goverment are battling.

The UNHCR said that refugees and asylum seekers expelled back to Mogadishu are at risk.

"UNHCR is deeply troubled by the reports of continuing deportations of Somali refugees and asylum seekers from Saudi Arabia to the conflict-stricken Somali capital," the agency spokeswoman Melissa Fleming said.

"Given the deadly violence in Mogadishu, UNHCR is urging the Saudi authorities to refrain from future deportations on humanitarian grounds," spokeswoman added.

The Agency said Saudi Arabia deported at least 1,000 Somali in June alone while nearly another 1,000 refugees were sent back to Somalia in July.

Most of the deported people are women who had worked in Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia has not signed up to the international refugee convention but the UNHCR has urged all countries not send back people to south and central Somalia, where mostly rebel militia control.

Many Somalis who are running from the ongoing war in the country use small boats to travel through the Red Sea to Yemen then Saudi Arabia for seeking better life. Hundreds of them have died in recent years as they tried to cross the sea.

Dozens of Somali civilians have been killed and scores wounded in this week's escalation of fighting between government forces and the Al-Shabaab militia in Mogadishu. Many more have been driven out of their homes by the continuing violence, according to the agency.
About 300,000 of Somalia's estimated 1.4 million internally displaced people are sheltering in Mogadishu, while the rest are in makeshift sites in the south and centre of the country.
Somali refugees were being harassed and arrested in Kenya while some others were deported from the northeastern parts of the country in the recent weeks. The semi-autonomous of Puntland carried out the deportation of Somalis fled from Mogadishu.
There are now 600,484 Somali refugees, mainly in Kenya, Yemen, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Djibouti, Tanzania and Uganda, plus 1.4 million Somalis displaced within the country, the agency says.