Saturday, November 26, 2011
On the heels
of the UN report, news from Somalia indicates that Al Shabaab
insurgents — largely blamed for the crisis — have banned up to 16 aid
agencies, including the United Nations Children Emergency Fund (Unicef),
putting at risk the lives of hundreds of infants and children under the
age of five.The number of people in
need of life-saving assistance in Somalia alone is estimated at 3.3
million. UN organizations "banned" by the militants include UNHCR,
Unicef, World Health Organisation (WHO), and UN Population Fund (UNFPA),
UN Office for Project Services (UNOPS) and the Food Security and
Nutrition Analysis Unit (FSNAU). The UN has warned that nearly 250,000
people face imminent starvation in southern Somalia, the main base for
Al Shabaab, with several areas under famine or emergency conditions. The
UN report also reveals the scale of Kenya’s burden as the biggest host
of Somali refugees among member states of the Intergovernmental
Authority on Drought and Development (Igad). As
many as 521,000 refugees are being hosted in and around Dadaab refugee
camp in North Eastern Kenya, most of them Somalis who have fled war and
drought in their country. The result is a deteriorating humanitarian and security situation in Somalia and Kenyan districts close to the shared border. armed raids As
Kenya intensifies its diplomatic offensive to beef up support for its
military intervention against Al Shabaab insurgents in Somalia, whom it
blames for the humanitarian crisis, the UN report says as many as
950,000 lives are at stake. It
warns that Sh15 billion ($172 million) is urgently needed to save lives
both within and outside Somalia. The call came a week after both the
Kenya Defence forces and Somalia’s Transitional Federal Government (TFG)
troops asked relief agencies to send aid to areas recently wrested from
Al Shabaab by KDF and TFG soldiers. Somalia’s
Islamist Al Shabaab rebels with links to Al Qaeda ordered 16
international aid agencies shut in areas they control after armed raids
on several offices, and warned more would follow if they did not toe the
line. "Any organisation found to be supporting or actively engaged in
activities deemed detrimental to the attainment of an Islamic State, or
performing duties other than that which it formally proclaims, will be
banned immediately without prior warning," the militant group that is
fighting TFG troops and Kenya Defence Forces said in a statement. Al
Shabaab claimed the groups were working to "foster secularism,
immorality and the degrading values of democracy in an Islamic country." Witnesses and aid workers reported that Al Shabaab gunmen stormed offices of several aid agencies in apparent coordinated raids. "Three
vehicles with gunmen surrounded the offices, including the office of
Unicef," said Adulahi Idle, a resident in the city of Baidoa. "I saw
many militiamen go inside the places and force the people there to leave
and the men took control." It
accused the agencies of "lacking complete political detachment and
neutrality... intensifying the instability and insecurity gripping the
nation as a whole." A regional
security source said the raids in south and central Somalia were well
planned and coordinated, with gunmen seizing computers, telephones and
other equipment from aid workers. No arrests were reported. "It was a
surprise, but something that was clearly planned," said an aid agency
official working in Somalia. Other
aid agencies affected include the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC),
Danish Refugee Council (DRC), Concern, Norwegian Church Aid (NCA) and
the Italian Cooperazione Internazionale (COOPI). Al
Shabaab also shut down the Swedish African Welfare Alliance (Sawa), the
German Technical Cooperation (GIZ), Action Contre la Faim (ACF),
Solidarity and Saacid. The
extremist Shabaab imposes draconian rules on humanitarian workers and
has blocked international staff working for aid agencies in its areas,
but has allowed limited operations by Somali nationals. The
UN refugee agency report released on Monday says Kenya is bearing the
brunt of hosting refugees fleeing Somalia, which has witnessed civil war
among clans for at least two decades. Urgent need "Due
to the high number of refugees fleeing the war torn country to seek
asylum in Kenya, high security risks have arisen with aid workers being
kidnapped and attacked by suspected Al Shabaab militants," says the
report. The Government in Nairobi has been forced to mobilise nearly 100
additional police officers deployed in the refugee camps over the past
month to strengthen security. Al
Shabaab militants have increased their cross border incursions
recently, abducting relief workers and foreign doctors in camps around
the Dadaab refugee complex. The
UNHCR says it is now providing police officers with additional
vehicles, shelter and telecommunications equipment to deal with threat. An
estimated 3.7 million Somalis are now in urgent need of humanitarian
assistance. Increasingly, Somalis are leaving their homes and walking
thousands of kilometres in search of food, most of them ending up in IDP
settlements within Somalia and refugee camps in Kenya and Ethiopia, in
extremely malnourished conditions. Bad
weather and disease have plagued relief efforts, making more people
vulnerable and children malnourished as they are cut-off from essential
food and medical supplies. "Heavy
rains complicate the situation of thousands of displaced Somalis in
East and the Horn of Africa," says the newly published UNHCR report. In
August, 30,376 refugees crossed into Kenya but the numbers began
slowing down when KDF’s "Operation Linda Nchi" was launched to guard the
porous shared border, with a paltry 918 people registering as refugees
in Dadaab. There are currently
950,000 registered Somali refugees in neighbouring countries, with
Kenya, Yemen, Ethiopia and Djibouti hosting more than 90 per cent of
them. "This year alone, some
289,000 Somalis have sought refuge in neighbouring countries, mostly in
Kenya and Ethiopia. Within Somalia, nearly 1.5 million Somalis are
internally displaced, mostly in south-central areas," says the UNHCR
Somalia report. Outbreak of diseases The
UN Food Security Nutrition Analysis Unit has lifted its "famine"
designation for three Somali regions —Bakool, Bay and Lower Shabelle —
downgrading them to "emergency" phase. The improvement follows a break
in the region’s deadly drought and progress in the UN’s ability to
deliver food to the country’s poorest people. The
improved situation in famine data is, however, described as
‘precarious.’ Premature withdrawal of food and other aid could result in
a relapse in the health of the affected population. In
recent months, the UN has increased assistance to over 2.4 million
people. While access to food has increased, mortality remains high
because of the outbreak of diseases such as cholera and measles. The ongoing conflict continues to restrict humanitarian access in general and hamper delivery of life-saving assistance.