Somalia 'too dangerous'

2008-03-27 15:31

Mogadishu - Top international aid agencies warned on Wednesday that war-scarred Somalia has become too dangerous for its workers to help more than one million civilians living rough as fresh fighting erupted near the capital.

Four Somali soldiers and two civilians were killed after Islamist fighters raided the town of Jowhar, 90km north of the capital Mogadishu, officials said.

Thirty-nine organisations including Oxfam, World Vision and Save the Children issued their warning of an impending humanitarian catastrophe ahead of a United Nations Security Council debate on Thursday on the strife torn Horn of Africa country.

The groups first issued a warning about their work in October.

"Since then, the crisis engulfing Somalia has deteriorated dramatically while access to people in need continues to decrease; 360 000 people have been newly displaced and an additional half a million people are reliant on humanitarian assistance," they said in a statement.

"There are now more than one million internally displaced people in Somalia. Intense conflict in Mogadishu continues to force an average of 20 000 people from their homes each month," they added.

Humanitarian crisis

Somali Prime Minister Nur Hassan Hussein conceded that there was a crisis because aid was not reaching the needy.

"It's true that in Somalia we have a humanitarian crisis. We have a large number of displaced people who are really suffering and in need of humanitarian aid," Nur Hussein told reporters in Addis Ababa.

"When somebody is suffering and aid isn't reaching in a very smooth way, we can call it that (humanitarian crisis). But crisis itself has different levels, our level isn't so dramatic but definitely it exists."

"There are constraints ... we'll try to remove these obstacles and build a mechanism for the facilitation of humanitarian operations," Hussein added.

The Security Council had reviewed options for increased UN involvement in strife-torn Somalia but key members had ruled out an early deployment of a full-fledged peacekeeping force.

Options included relocating Nairobi-based UN personnel dealing with Somalia to Mogadishu; boosting the UN presence in the country; deploying up to 28 500 UN troops and police or sending an estimated 8 000-strong "stabilisation force".

Lack of respect

The aid agencies said that the plight of Somali civilians forced from their homes had been exacerbated by other factors.

"Record high food prices, hyper-inflation and drought in large parts of the country is leaving communities struggling to survive," it said.

The report said families left in the capital Mogadishu or "the poorest of the poor who did not have the means to flee" earned $12.13 a month on average.

"Assuming the average family size in Somalia is 6.9, this works out as $1.76 per person per month - or six cents per person per day. This will buy someone three bread rolls."

The humanitarian relief efforts had been exacerbated by lawlessness and rising insecurity, it warned.

"Attacks on, and killings of aid workers, the looting of relief supplies, and a lack of respect for international humanitarian law by all parties have left two million Somalis in need of basic humanitarian assistance."

Six aid workers had been killed since 2008 prompting some agencies to pullout international staff from Somalia. Kidnapping incidents had also increased, they said.

The report citing a UN evaluation as saying that "efforts to assist the people of Somalia had never been as restricted as they are now".

It spoke of "administrative delays, restrictions or delays in movement of goods, targeting of humanitarian workers, targeting civil society and media, localised disputes/competition over resources, lack of will and/or ability by authorities to address security incidents within their control".

- AFP