Somalia wants UN waste probe

2005-03-09 12:45

Nairobi - Somalia's new environment minister asked the United Nations on Wednesday to investigate possible hazardous waste that was washed ashore by last year's tsunami and may be causing illnesses among local people.

Mohamed Osman Maye, a minister in Somalia's new government based in neighbouring Kenya, said strange objects washed ashore all along his country's coastline, the longest in Africa, when a tsunami struck on December 26 2004.

He said new reports of illnesses and suspected hazardous waste were still reaching his ministry, which has no offices in Somalia. The new government was formed last year in Kenya, but so far insecurity in the Horn of Africa country has kept it from returning home.

No functional government

Somalia has been without a functional central government since 1991, when clan-based warlords overthrew the government and then turned on each other. Since then, the country has been divided by fiefdoms and the new transitional government formed in Kenya aims to unite them.

There have been anecdotal reports of foreign ships dumping hazardous waste along Somalia's coast for more than a decade, but in the absence of a government, conducting thorough investigations have been impossible.

Maye said that he had no evidence to back up unconfirmed reports that radioactive waste may have come ashore when the tsunami hit Somalia. But he called on the United Nations Environment Programme, also based in Nairobi, for assistance since hundreds of people were reporting unusual illnesses.

"Unep should assist my ministry to send a team of environmental experts jointly composed by Somalis and Unep staff ... to identify the reality on the ground in order to define the environment situation, the types of the dumped hazardous debris and their origins," Maye said.

He said he had no date for when such a team might travel to Somalia.

He also complained to journalists on Wednesday about deforestation caused by the charcoal industry, which supplies Gulf states. He said trees were being harvested without any plan to replace them and it was causing enduring harm to Somalia's environment.

Foreign fishing vessels have also caused irreparable harm by overfishing in Somali territorial waters and international intervention was needed to stop them, Maye said.

- AP