WFP to continue food aid to Somalia
2010-03-01 12:53
Nairobi - The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) on Monday vowed to continue delivering food aid to Somalia despite an Islamist insurgent group having ordered them to cease all operations.
Al-Shabaab, which controls much of south and central Somalia and is battling to oust the weak Western-backed government, accuses the WFP of delivering out-of-date grain and secretly backing foreign forces.
"WFP is determined to help the people of Somalia in need of assistance regardless of who controls the areas in which they live, as long as it is safe for our staff to do so," Nairobi-based WFP spokesperson Peter Smerdon said.
The insurgent group last year told WFP and its local partners to cease all operations by early January. It repeated the warning on Sunday.
"After seeing the WFP cause different problems ... such as bring in expired food cereals and secretly assisting foreign troops, we decided to halt all its operations in Somalia," al-Shabaab said in statement on Sunday.
The insurgents say huge deliveries of food aid are damaging the local economy by stopping Somali farmers from cultivating their own crops.
Repeated droughts
Millions of Somalis are dependent on food aid due to a long conflict and repeated droughts in the Horn of Africa nation.
WFP in January suspended its operations in large areas of south Somalia, but it is still delivering food in the north and around the capital Mogadishu, where the government, backed by an African Union peacekeeping force, still controls some areas.
However, al-Shabaab has been stopping trucks attempting to deliver food to Afgoye, west of Mogadishu, where over 300 000 civilians who fled fighting in the capital are sheltering in camps.
"We haven't succeeded (in delivering food) so far and have been trying for the last couple of weeks," Smerdon said.
The Horn of Africa nation has been embroiled in chaos since the 1991 ouster of dictator Mohamed Siad Barre.
More than 20 000 people have died in the current insurgency, which kicked off in early 2007 after Ethiopian forces invaded to oust an Islamist regime that ruled for six months in 2006.
- SAPA