Somalis flee, face starvation

2007-09-27 08:19

Jowhar - Tens of thousands of Somalis who fled the violence in their conflict-wracked capital are facing yet another humanitarian crisis - a debilitating food shortage after poor rains.

Seven months ago, Dahir Abdi Hassan, 19, fled from the near-daily violence in Mogadishu with five of his family members, including his parents.

In Mogadishu, Hassan's family ate two meals a day. In this southern Somalia agricultural town of Jowhar, they made one meal a day as they lived with a relative who also had to fend for his 10 children.

Hassan said: "I'm not comfortable with that, but what I can do? There is no work and it is too dangerous to go back" to Mogadishu.

300 000 'at risk of starvation'

Peter Goossens, the World Food Programme's Somalia country director, said the country was facing serious challenges such as floods, drought, malnutrition, war and rising inflation, which meant that many Somalis couldn't cope with the food shortages.

Goossens said: "We can't really improve their life." He was speaking as hundreds of Somalis lined up to receive his agency's corn, beans and oil in an open centre in Jowhar for people made homeless by the violence in Mogadishu.

Goossens said: "All we can really do is to stop them from falling off the edge." Most of those in line were women, some with babies strapped to their backs.

Already, 1.5 million of Somalia's estimated that seven million people needed food aid. Nearly 300 000 were at risk of starvation, aid workers said.

The hunger was at its most acute in the southern Somalia region of Shabelle that had served as the country's breadbasket.

Mom escapes violence

Poor rains had yielded the worst harvest in 13 years, and an influx of 80 000 people fleeing Mogadishu had pushed up food prices beyond the reach of many locals. The influx had tested the goodwill of Jowhar residents, as relatives swarmed their homes.

Guro Mogow, a mother of four, said she walked more than 90km to Jowhar from Mogadishu to escape the violence. Like many others, she now stays with relatives in Jowhar.

Mogow said: "Before, they were not rich. But now they have to reduce the size of the meal they take because of us." Hundreds of thousands had left Mogadishu since December.

They had been fleeing violence in the capital between Somali soldiers, their Ethiopian allies and insurgents believed to be remnants of a radical Islamic group called the Council of Islamic Courts that controlled Mogadishu and much of southern Somalia for six months.

The Ethiopian troops routed the Islamic fighters in December and the Islamic fighters vowed to fight an Iraq-style insurgency. Thousands of Somalis had died in the fighting this year.

- AP