UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has called for an immediate end to fighting in Somalia which has killed more than 250 people in the past week.
He was critical of the reported use of heavy weapons against centres of civilian population.
Mr Ban also called for the resumption of talks between the warring factions.
He spoke as shelling continued in the capital, Mogadishu, where government forces backed by Ethiopia are battling clan militias and Islamist insurgents.
Ethiopian tanks have been pursuing Islamists and local militias into their stronghold in the north of the capital.
Meanwhile, there has been heavy fighting between rival clans in the southern port town of Kismayo, with reports of 15 dead and 13 people injured in two days of clashes.
Fighters from the Marehan clan have taken control of the town in what correspondents say is a big blow to the government.
Bodies
Some 250 people have been killed during the last six days of fighting and thousands are fleeing the capital.
Many bodies are lying around Mogadishu and hundreds of people are heading towards the Kenyan border, with some seriously injured, says BBC Swahili reporter Khadra Mohammed.
Only people with money are able to move out of the capital on public transport vans, and most of the dead are poor people, our correspondent says.
A UNHCR spokesperson, Catherine Weibel, told the BBC the agency is now providing relief supplies to about 20,000 displaced people out of the more than 300,000 who have fled the violence.
Ethiopian forces have been in Mogadishu since December last year after helping Somalia's transitional government oust the Union of Islamic Courts (UIC).
The insurgents are believed to be a mixture of Islamists and militiamen from the Hawiye clan - the largest in Mogadishu.
Somalia has not had a functional government since 1991. A transitional government was formed in 2004, but has so far failed to take full control of the country.
Ethiopian troops have started to withdraw, to be replaced by an African Union peacekeeping force, but only 1,200 of the 8,000 troops the AU says it needs have been deployed.
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