Somalia govt, Ethiopian troops hampering UN relief effort
April 19, 2007 (GENEVA) — Somali government forces and their Ethiopian backers are hampering United Nations relief efforts in the East African nation, the U.N.’s humanitarian coordinator for Somalia said Thursday.
Staff are being detained and aid shipments are prevented from reaching their destination because of roadblocks, threats and continued fighting, Eric Laroche told reporters.
Somalia’s Interior Minister Mohamed Mohamud Guled said that the U.N. has not informed them of their concerns, but, “It is our duty to monitor for security reasons all humanitarian aid.”
Laroche said that more than a dozen U.N. agencies are working to help the hundreds of thousands of people affected by continued fighting between Somali troops backed by Ethiopian forces and remnants of the country’s ousted Islamic movement.
“We have to have access to our warehouses. We have to have access without being blocked by the Ethiopian forces or the TFG (Transitional Federal Government) forces,” Laroche said.
Some 218,000 people have fled their homes and many more rely on relief groups for basic needs, but aid workers are unable to reach up to 100,000 people.
Laroche said 40 trucks of food were held up by government forces citing “quality control” reasons in the southern town of Afgoye, close to the capital Mogadishu; the U.N. children’s agency has been prevented from accessing a warehouse in Mogadishu filled with household kits for those fleeing the fighting; and Somali staff have been harassed and detained at checkpoints, he said.
“There has been no attempt by the TFG at the moment to try to help us,” Laroche said, though he expressed hope that a meeting next week with senior government officials in the eastern town of Baidoa could bring progress.
Aid agencies have also struggled to get large shipments of relief goods into the country. The sea route has been closed for months due to the threat of piracy, and aid flights to Mogadishu’s international airport stopped after an aircraft was shot down with a missile in March.
Laroche said the U.N. had received at least two threats of unknown origin that its planes would be fired on if they tried to land at Mogadishu.
A widening epidemic of cholera and other waterborne disease — killing 414 people and affecting over 12,000 — as well as the predictions of further flooding in the region during the coming rainy season could worsen the situation, he said.
The U.N. has asked for an additional US$25 million (A18 million) on top of US$237 million (A174 million) already requested for its humanitarian work in Somalia this year. So far, about 34 percent of that appeal has been met, Laroche said.
(AP)