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DJIBOUTI, DJIBOUTI- MARCH 2008.Covering their bodies with tattered blankets and veils, a group of thirty female refugees spend the night sleeping along the pavement in Djiboutiville's Rue Issa. Having fled the escalating fighting in Mogadishu, this group of women arrived in Djibouti just three days before.Record numbers crossing the porous border has lead to serious overcrowding in the city's slums. For these already vulnerable women, there are no shelters, no place of refuge at the mosques and nowhere to turn as the already impoverished city dwellers start to charge exorbitant rents that remain unaffordable to all but a few of the tahrib. Testament to this, females have been seen sleeping out in the open for the first time. Most have paid out what little money they have to bed their children down for the night in a place of safety; they don't have enough shillings spare to put themselves out of harm's way. (KEYSTONE/NOOR/Alixandra Fazzina)