Aid lands in Mogadishu as fighters retreat
2011-08-08 20:06
Mogadishu - The United Nations airlifted humanitarian aid on Monday to Mogadishu, for the first time since Islamist fighters withdrew from the city over the weekend, but a funding shortfall continued to cast a shadow over future operations.
"Due to the unprecedented rise in the number of civilians uprooted because of famine, the agency decided to airlift supplies in order to save time," said the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR).
This was the first time in five years that UNHCR brought in aid via an air delivery.
The plane mostly carried tents to house the ever-growing number of displaced people in Mogadishu, as Somalis flee the south, where the drought is harshest and the Islamist al-Shabaab militia blocks aid deliveries.
Two more air deliveries of emergency supplies were scheduled for later this week.
The World Food Programme made several humanitarian flights to the war-torn capital in recent weeks, owing to the increasing number of people in urgent need of food.
Five areas of Somalia are officially seeing famine conditions, according to the UN, and the entire south of the country will likely fall into this most extreme category in the coming weeks.
The refugee agency warned that it still had less than 45% of the funding it needed to carry our relief work in the drought-hit Horn of Africa.
UNHCR had appealed to donors for $145m.
New tactics
Al-Shabaab rebels on Saturday pulled out from Mogadishu, and Somali government troops, backed by African Union peacekeepers, are patrolling the streets, including areas previously held by the Islamists.
But some fighting has continued. Al-Shabaab, which has links to al-Qaeda, says the withdrawal was part of "new tactics" to fight the government and "liberate our country from the heretics".
The government downplayed attacks late on Sunday night, saying they did not pose a real threat to their forces as they attempted to bring order to the streets of the capital.
"I call on al-Shabaab (fighters) to surrender to the government. We will care for their safety," said Abdikarim Yusuf Dhaga Badan, a Somali military spokesperson.
The country has lacked a strong central government for two decades, and in recent years the official authorities have only controlled the capital for a brief period of some months.
Al-Shabaab still maintains numerous strongholds in the central and southern areas of Somalia. However, the worst drought the region has seen in decades appeared, at least for the moment, to be weakening the Islamist group, which seeks to impose strict religious law.
An estimated 100 000 Somalis, driven by drought and famine, have fled to Mogadishu over the past two months, mostly from the south. There were already over 370 000 internally displaced people in the capital, owing to years of war.
More than 800 000 Somalis have fled their country to neighbouring states - especially Kenya and Ethiopia, which are also suffering droughts - due to the conflict and the recent natural disaster.
- SAPA
