( CNN ) -- At least 20 people have died and 55 others have been wounded in continuing fighting in the Somali capital of Mogadishu , an ambulance director said Thursday . Somali forces have been battling insurgent fighters from al-Shabaab , the al Qaeda proxy in Mogadishu and the rest of the country . The militants are waging a war against the government in an effort to implement a stricter form of Islamic law , known as sharia . The fighting has displaced an estimated 1.4 million Somalis within the country , and more than 580,000 live as refugees in neighboring countries , the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees said in May . Mogadishu is bulging at the seams with more than 350,000 internally displaced people -- many of whom are living in overcrowded conditions and on the street under plastic sheets and makeshift dwellings . `` These are the most vulnerable and utterly dependent on scarce aid the humanitarian agencies manage to deliver and meager remittances from relatives living abroad , '' the U.N. agency said last month . `` Hundreds of children are forced to beg in the streets of the capital and many women beg in the main markets . '' The Horn of Africa nation has not had a stable government since 1991 , and fighting between the rebels and government troops has escalated the humanitarian crisis in the famine-ravaged country . The U.N.-backed interim government fights the rebels with the help of African Union peacekeepers . Recent fighting and displacement has been aggravating an already grave demographic reality : About 43 percent of the Somali population `` lives below the extreme poverty line and one in seven Somali children die before the age of 5 , '' the refugee agency said .
Somali forces fighting al Qaeda proxy trying to impose strict Islamic law . The fighting has displaced more than a million Somalis . Comment: