UN: Somalia at 'dire crossroads'

2008-07-18 13:15

London - Attacks on aid workers in Somalia and disruptions to food shipments are threatening the lives of millions of starving Somalis, the United Nations' food agency has warned.

The war-torn Horn of Africa country risked all-out famine if the threats continued, said Peter Goossens, the World Food Programme (WFP)'s country director for Somalia.

"Somalia is at a dire crossroads," he told a London news conference.

"If sufficient food and other humanitarian assistance cannot be scaled up in the coming months, parts of the country could well be in the grips of disaster similar to the 1992-1993 famine," after hundreds of thousands died, he added.

Earlier this week, the UN issued fresh protests after gunmen killed a transport agent working for the WFP in Somalia, where millions of people were on the brink of starvation.

The man, who was shot in southern Somalia on Sunday, was the fifth WFP-contracted worker and the twelfth aid worker overall to be killed this year in the African nation.

90% of food arrives in Somalia

Goossens warned that worsening security was hindering land and sea deliveries of food, noting that the WFP had appealed to foreign governments to provide naval escorts to protect WFP food ships against piracy.

French, Danish and Dutch naval escorts had proved invaluable over the last eight months, he said, lamenting that the UN agency had received no commitments for further escorts beyond June.

Some 90% of food aid arrived in Somalia by sea, according to the WFP, which said the overall number of people in need of food assistance was expected to rise to 3.5 million people by December, up from at least 2.6 million now.

UN officials had appealed to the Somali government and Islamist militants fighting for control of the country to spare aid workers, many of whom had been killed or kidnapped in recent months.

Aid groups had scaled down operations in Somalia because of increased insecurity, largely blamed on Islamist militants who had waged a guerrilla war since they were ousted by joint Somali-Ethiopian forces in early 2007.

A desert nation of up to 10 million people, Somalia had been wracked by violence since dictator Mohamed Siad Barre was ousted in 1991, sparking a bloody power struggle.

A ceasefire, which came into force on July 09, a month after it was signed, had repeatedly been violated, the latest being on Tuesday after Islamists attacked a Mogadishu army camp, triggering clashes that claimed four civilians.

- AFP