U.N. Food Agency Suspends Aid to Southern Somalia

xiinfaniin · January 5, 2010

January 6, 2010

By ALAN COWELL

LONDON — The United Nations World Food Program said Tuesday it was suspending aid deliveries to a million people in southern Somalia because of “rising threats and attacks on humanitarian operations, as well as the imposition of a string of unacceptable demands from armed groups.”

In a statement on its Web site, the organization said perilous conditions for its staff had made it “virtually impossible” to reach people in need in the region, including many women and children.

Somalia has been without an effective central government for almost two decades, caught in a swirl of bloody contests between armed groups. A radical Islamist group called the Shabab and allied insurgent groups control most of the country, while the writ of the weak transitional government is limited to a small enclave in Mogadishu, the capital, under the protection of African Union peacekeeping troops.

The Obama administration says the Shabab has links to Al Qaeda.

According to The Associated Press, the World Food Program said many of the areas affected by the suspension of food aid were controlled by Shabab militants. Emilia Casella, a spokeswoman for the World Food Program, said armed groups had demanded that the food agency remove women from all posts and pay protection to guarantee the safety of aid workers.

In its statement, the World Food Program said it was “continuing to provide life-saving food distribution in the rest of the country, including the capital, Mogadishu, reaching more than two-thirds of the hungry it has been targeting — or 1.8 million people.”

The food agency said that in the past five years, Somalia had produced only 30 percent of its food requirements.

Sherban Shabeel · January 5, 2010

BBC:

The UN's World Food Programme (WFP) has pulled out of large parts of southern Somalia because of threats from powerful Islamist rebel groups.

The WFP says the suspension is its biggest shut-down in years and will affect about one million people.

The al-Shabab militant group has repeatedly threatened the WFP - who it accuses of ruining local farming by forcing Somalis to rely on imports.

The WFP says without help, Somali farmers cannot supply enough food.

Drought and war have left more than 109,000 young children and many more adults dependent on the feeding centres run by the WFP.

But late last year al-Shabab, which controls large parts of southern Somalia, gave the WFP a deadline of 1 January to halt all of its operations in the area.

Staff evacuated

The group also issued a string of demands for aid agencies working in the region.

The WFP's Peter Smerdon said these included removing women from their jobs and a demand for a payment of $20,000 (£12,400) every six months for security.

"WFP's humanitarian operations in southern Somalia have been under escalating attacks from armed groups, leading to this partial suspension of humanitarian food distributions in much of southern Somalia," the agency said in a statement.

Six of its offices - in Wajid, Buale, Garbahare, Afmadow, Jilib and Belet Weyne - have been shut temporarily, which the agency said would affect more than a third of the people it feeds in Somalia, most of whom are women and children.

The WFP said it would continue food distribution in other parts of Somalia, including the capital Mogadishu.

Its staff who have been evacuated from the south will be redeployed in other parts of the country, preparing to help people who might start moving away from areas where feeding programmes have been suspended.

Somalia has been in turmoil since 1991 when its central government collapsed.

The transitional government, helped by an African Union peacekeeping force, runs only parts of Mogadishu.

Groups such as al-Shabab want to impose a hard-line interpretation of Islamic law on the country.

Sherban Shabeel · January 5, 2010