SUNDAY EDITORIAL | The hundreds of Somalis fleeing their country per week are doing so for specific reasons.

This week, the United Nations refugee agency (UNHCR) announced that 100 migrants were missing after they were dumped out of smugglers' boats in the Gulf of Aden. Most of the dead victims are Somalis, fleeing war and poverty in a violent part of the world. Their plan was to trek across the Gulf of Aden and secretly enter Yemen, which is already coping with a refugee overflow.

The tragic deaths is yet another worrying reminder that the situation in Somalia is fast deteriorating, as government officials bicker among themselves and insurgents deliver fatal blows to the government and its supporters, including Ethiopian troops and African Union peacekeepers. The phenomenon of human trafficking gains momentum each other as the violence worsens.

Even as hundreds of migrants perish at sea, more Somalis are leaving different regions of the country and searching for a way out of the endless cycle of violence. Most of the migrants are young men and women – the generation that, in a normal country, would be attending college and preparing for a future of work and family. But this is a generation that has been denied basic opportunities. This is the generation whose male population has to choose between chewing the narcotic drug khat as a pastime or carrying an AK-47 – for the government or its opposition.

A complex combination of issues has helped fuel the human trafficking tragedy in Somalia. Firstly, a bloody insurgency in southern and central Somalia has swelled up the numbers of would-be migrants. Second, with no effective government to speak of, human traffickers have no fear of the law or are in some cases more powerful than local political forces. Thirdly, the international community's negligent response to human trafficking or Somali affairs in general has emboldened criminal elements countrywide.

The hundreds of Somalis fleeing their country per week are doing so for specific reasons related to personal security and lack of opportunities. The Garowe Online Editorial Board has long maintained that the Somali conflict is multi-layered, but one that is intractably interrelated at critical junctures to the point that one element cannot thrive alone.

Somalia presents a moral dilemma to human civilization. The civilians killed in the crossfire between Ethiopian tanks and insurgent mortars, the families dying of thirst in the countryside and the youth drowning in the high seas marks a moral scar on the world's conscience. But does the world hear their cries?

A peace deal brokered by the United Nations presents a critical opportunity for world leaders to enage directly in Somalia's affairs and help bring an end to one of Africa's longest-running conflicts. While the UN recently endorsed an anti-piracy resolution, there is no mention on how to tackle the morally pressing issue of human trafficking, which ironically takes places along the Somali coast now notorious for pirate attacks.

Again we ask: Does the world hear the Somali peoples' cry for help?

Garowe Online Editorial, editorial@garoweonline.com