Scores of Somali legislators have fled violence at home to the safety of other countries in Africa, Europe and the United States, leaving the nation's Parliament without a quorum to meet.

Violence from an Islamist-led insurgency has worsened this month, when a minister, the Mogadishu police chief, and a legislator were all killed. The government, which controls little but a few parts of the capital, has declared a state of emergency.

With reports of foreign jihadists streaming into Somalia, Western security services are frightened Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network may get a grip on the failed Horn of Africa state that has been without central government for 18 years.

Needing two-thirds of legislators present to meet, Somalia's 550-seat Parliament has not convened since April 25.

Officials said yesterday that 288 members of Parliament (MPs) were abroad, with only about 50 on official visits.

The rest were in neighbours Kenya and Djibouti, European nations such as Sweden, Britain, The Netherlands and Norway, and the United States, the officials said.

"I cannot be a member of a government that cannot protect me," Abdalla Haji Ali, an MP who left for Kenya last week, said. "In Somalia, nobody is safe."

Parliament speaker Sheikh Aden Mohamed Madobe has urged the MPs to return, and Somalia's Finance Ministry has blocked the salaries of 144 legislators abroad, officials said.

In Nairobi yesterday, plenty of Somali MPs could be seen sipping tea and talking politics in various hotels and cafés.

"As legislators, we have responsibility and every one of us should perform his duty in Mogadishu," one legislator who has stayed in Mogadishu, Sheikh Ahmed Moalim, said.

"Before you decide to flee, you have to resign officially if you realise that you cannot work in this environment."