25 Jul 2011 – Daily Monitoring Report
Key Headlines:
- WFP says Al Shabaab frustrating aid efforts
- ICRC distributes food in Bardera district
- WFP delegation arrives in central Somalia
- UN talks due on Horn of Africa drought crisis
- US Europe urged to do more to ward off severe famine in parched Somalia
- Humanitarian agencies meet in Abu Dhabi to boost Somalia famine aid
- Stop entry of refugees says Murugi
World Bank pledges $500 million for drought-stricken Horn of Africa region
SOMALI MEDIA
ICRC distributes food in Bardera district
25 Jul – Source: Radio Bar-Kulan – 160 words
The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) on Sunday distributed humanitarian relief food to 1500 drought-stricken families in Bardera town, Gedo region. ICRC spokesman, Yves van Loo, told Bar-kulan, that they have distributed relief food comprising of rice, maize, beans and cooking oil which was delivered few days ago in the district by the ICRC. The spokesman said that ICRC has delivered humanitarian food aid to Gedo region to help over 24,000 people severely affected by the current drought in Somalia.
MP: Battles against al Shabaab hampered by TFG bickering
24 Jul – Source: Mareeg Online – 145 words
Mohamoud Sayid Adam, an MP and a government official in Gedo region, southern Somalia on Sunday disclosed that infighting and political bickering between TFG officials has hampered the ongoing battle against al Shabaab in southern Somalia. Mr. Adam said that government forces in the region had been continuing their efforts to dislodge what he called the ‘anti peace’ group from the country completely, but noted that the political standoff and infighting in the government blocked their way forward. Mr. Adam spelled out that the people in Gedo region are against the appointment of the new cabinet saying that they are all from the Diaspora and don’t know what is going on in Somalia.
http://www.mareeg.com/fidsan.
Al Shabaab, armed militia clash, one killed
24 Jul – Source: Shabelle – 133 words
Fighters loyal to al Shabaab and armed militia on Sunday clashed in a village just outside of Mogadishu, local resident’s said. The confrontation, which took place in Garas Gawan village near Jazira area, broke out after al Shabaab fighters attacked militias armed with light weapons in the area.
http://www.shabelle.net/
WFP delegation arrives in central Somalia
24 Jul – Source: Shabelle – 181 words
A World Food Program (WFP) delegation led by agency’s executive director Josette Sheeran on Sunday arrived at Galka’yo, a town in central Somalia to study the humanitarian situation in the region. The WFP delegation held IDP related discussions with the leaders of self-styled Galmudug headed by President Mohamed Ahmed Alin in southern Galka’yo, about 700 kilometers north of Mogadishu and a home of thousands of people who fled from drought and conflict in southcentral Somalia. The two sides also discussed ways in which those starving in the IDPs camps of Galk’ayo could be helped.
http://www.shabelle.net/
Ahlu Sunna: We are sorry for the alleged graft within Somali govt
25 Jul – Source: Radio Shabelle – 95 words
Ahlu Sunna Waljama’a (ASWJ) on Monday said it is very sorry the allegedly graft and corruption by government leaders. Sheikh Abdullahi Sheikh Abdurrahman, the spokesman of ASWJ made the statement while speaking to Shabelle radio. The spokesman said that it is unacceptable for government officials to divert funds intended for the reconstruction of the country. Asked about emerging reports that internal disagreements within ASWJ are intensifying, the spokesman denied the allegations and described the reports as propaganda.
Al Shabaab: Welfare agencies displace people
25 Jul – Source: Mareeg Online – 131 words
Sheikh Ali Mohamud Raghe (Sh. Dhere), the al Shabaab spokesman has accused of welfare agencies of displacing people in the areas it controls and disproved of UN reports on the drought in Somalia, reports said. Sheikh Ali Dhere said that aid agencies were responsible for the displacement of livestock keepers and farmers who are going to Ethiopia and Kenya. He called on residents to remain in their homes and described reports by the UN on the drought as false.
http://www.mareeg.com/fidsan.
REGIONAL MEDIA
WFP says Al Shabaab frustrating aid efforts
25 Jul – Source: Capital FM – 427 words
The emergency response by the World Food Program (WFP) is yet to reach 60 percent of the people in Somalia currently faced by acute hunger occasioned by a devastating drought never experienced in the Horn of Africa in decades.
WFP Executive Director Josette Sheeran told journalists in Nairobi on Sunday that the food crisis in Somalia has been worsened due to the insecurity posed by the Al Shabaab, and which is preventing effective provision of emergency relief services.
“More than 60 percent of the population in Somalia has been inaccessible because of the threat from the Al Shabaab but we are seeing a people moving on the road in search of food,” she said. “We have heard the testimonies of mothers who have children leaving their children along the roads, those who are too weak to make it and some who died,” she explained of a crisis that she said may reach catastrophic levels in the coming weeks. Ms Sheeran decried the rates of malnutrition in Somalia which, she said, were alarming and many people particularly children are currently starving to death.
“When you have a malnutrition rate of 4O percent then you are dealing with an emergency, 40 percent of the children could die. It has now become a multiple crisis with people moving and getting displaced,”she further explained.
Ms Sheeran however assured that the UN agency would continue to operate where it was possible to do so having lost 14 workers in Somalia since 2008.She said that WFP will scale up its response in a multi-pronged operation by airlifting food into the capital, Mogadishu, in the coming days to help the thousands of malnourished children who face starvation in the country, two days after Kenyan government Spokesman Dr Alfred Mutua called on the international community to consider airlifting food to the hunger stricken areas in Somaliland instead of waiting for refugees to walks hundreds of Kilometers into Kenya in search of food.
http://www.capitalfm.co.ke/
Humanitarian agencies meet in Abu Dhabi to boost Somalia famine aid
25 Jul – Source: The National – 387 words
Humanitarian organisations met in the capital yesterday to hammer out a plan to boost aid to victims of the devastating famine in Somalia. Aid groups held talks on how to speed up the relief effort to combat the unfolding humanitarian tragedy in the Horn of Africa, described by the United Nations as the worst hunger emergency in a generation.
A UAE aid delegation will visit Mogadishu in the next two days to co-ordinate the provision of food, medial supplies and drinkable water to famine victims. Representatives from Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan Humanitarian Foundation, Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan Foundation for Charitable and Humanitarian Works, Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum Humanitarian and Charity Establishment and the UAE Office for the Coordination of Foreign Aid met at the Red Crescent Authority headquarters in Abu Dhabi. The meeting follows directives by the UAE leadership to address the unfolding humanitarian tragedy.
Ahmed Al Mazrouei, chairman of the RCA, said the meeting was fruitful and would have a positive effect in backing international efforts to ease famine, indicating that it would also boost the UAE humanitarian role in Africa.
The UN launched a global appeal three weeks ago for Dh500 million to provide assistance to Somalis, and asked the UAE Government on July 13 for help and “direct intervention”. The UN refugee agency then formally asked the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to contribute. It said the UAE had been forthcoming in its recent efforts to help Libyan refugees, according to a statement by Brigitte Khair Mountain, head of office and senior adviser for the UN High Commissioner for Refugees.
http://www.thenational.ae/
Stop entry of refugees, says Murugi
24 Jul – Source: Daily Nation – 295 words
A Cabinet minister has called on the international community to stop the entry of more Somali refugees in Kenya, citing threat to security and strained resources. “Let Somalis stay in their country. If it is food, we are willing to assist them, but currently we are strained,” said Special Programmes minister Esther Murugi.
She said refugee camps should be built in Somalia. The minister said the strategic grain reserves had shrunk to two million bags of maize instead of the required eight million, noting that buying more was difficult due to increased prices. According to Ms Murugi, the Cabinet has asked ministries to donate divert some of their votes to mitigate the effects of the crisis.
“We are targeting Sh10.5 billion, and so far Sh8 billion has been rose. There is no point of building roads if there will be no Kenyans to use them,” she said. Ms Murugi, Dr Mohammed Sirat (Wajir South MP), United Nations World Food Programme executive director Josette Sheeran, head of Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) Jacques Diouf and French Agricu lture minister Bruno le Maire were on a tour of drought-ravaged Wajir on Saturday. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) estimates that there are 483,000 refugees in Kenya. The refugees have since January been arriving in the country at the rate of 1,300 per day. Local leaders fear that this situation is putting pressure on the scarce food and land. The UN says that tens of thousands of people have died in Somalia from drought-related causes.
Puntland region in deal over ‘alien’ forces
24 Jul – Source: Daily Nation, All Headline News – 146 words
Representatives from the hard-line Islamist-cum-militia leader, Sheikh Mohamed Said Atom, and officials from the semi-autonomous State of Puntland in North-eastern Somalia met in Nugal region and agreed on a joint stand against “alien” forces.
Reports from Garowe, the capital of Puntland, 1, 000 km northeast of Mogadishu, indicate that a preliminary accord was reached between the two parties. It added that the talks were organized by community elders and influential people from Puntland, especially from the affected Sanaag and Bari regions.
The accord, according to undisclosed Puntland officials, includes cessation of hostilities, removal of ‘aliens’ from the disputed territories and to give the elders a chance to advance the peace talks. Puntland forces and militias led by Sheikh Atom fought bitter wars in and around the township of Galgala at the base of the Golis mountain range, west of Bosaso, the main port town of Puntland.
Sh9bn set aside for relief supplies
24 Jul – Source: Daily Nation – 247 words
Some Sh9 billion has been set aside to finance emergency relief programmes for those affected by drought in the country. The drought had necessitated cross-border migration of pastoralist communities, hence the urgent need to cushion them against starvation, said Vice-President Kalonzo Musyoka. Mr Musyoka thanked the humanitarian agencies for working with Kenya in assisting the faminestricken families in Somalia.
He assured them that Kenya would continue supporting refugees from Somalia. The Vice-President was speaking yesterday at Serena Hotel, Nairobi, during talks with Australian minister for Foreign Affairs Kevin Rudd. Mr Musyoka cited insecurity in Somalia as the main challenge in offering humanitarian operations.
He, however, said Kenya was working closely with other neighboring countries, in particular Ethiopia, in assisting the people of Somalia.
INTERNATIONAL MEDIA
UN talks due on Horn of Africa drought crisis
25 Jul – Source: BBC, Bloomberg, VOA, and CBS – 128 words
The UN’s food agency is set to hold emergency talks in Rome as the drought crisis deepens in the Horn of Africa. More than 10 million people are thought to be at risk of starvation. The UN has already declared famine in two areas of southern Somalia. UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has urged donor countries to supply an extra $1.6bn (£980m) in aid.
Earlier the Red Cross said it delivered food to one of Somalia’s worst-hit areas, controlled by Islamists. Working through a local committee, the Red Cross delivered lorry-loads of food for 24,000 people. Al Shabaab, an al-Qaeda-affiliated group which controls large swathes of south and central Somalia, had imposed a ban on foreign aid agencies in its territories in 2009, but has recently allowed limited access.
But the World Food Programme says still it cannot reach 2.2 million people inside Somalia as refugees are continue to pour over the Kenyan and Ethiopian borders. The UN says East Africa is experiencing the worst drought in 60 years. Somalia is thought to be worst-hit, but Ethiopia and Kenya have also been affected.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/
US, Europe urged to do more to ward off severe famine in parched Somalia
25 Jul – Source: Boston Globe – 161 words
Somalia’s famine will be five times worse by Christmas unless the international community increases its food aid, Australia’s foreign minister said yesterday during a visit to Somalia, even as the international Red Cross distributed 400 tons of food into hard-to-reach areas of the south. Kevin Rudd was in Somalia’s famine-struck area of Dolo to appeal to the world to help avoid a catastrophe. During his visit hundreds of women with small children in tow massed around a World Food Program sign-up table.
Rudd talked with internal refugees who have had little to eat in recent days. The World Food Program’s executive director, Josette Sheeran, said the program will open new feeding sites in and around Dolo by the end of the week. She said it is critical that the agency gets new funding to fight the three-pronged catastrophe of drought, conflict, and high food prices. The agency estimates more than 11.3 million people need aid across drought-hit regions in East Africa.
World Bank pledges $500 million for drought-stricken Horn of Africa region
25 Jul – Source: AFP – 241 words
The World Bank on Monday pledged more than $500 million (348 million euros) to aid the drought-strickenHorn of Africa region, as United Nations aid chiefs met in Rome to discuss ramping up relief efforts.
The bulk of the money will go towards long-term projects to aid livestock farmers while $12 million will be for immediate assistance to those worst hit by the crisis and facing starvation, the World Bank said in a statement.
“The recurring nature of drought… calls not only for immediate relief from the current situation but also for building long term drought resilience,” Obiagelii Ezekwesili, World Bank vice president for Africa, was quoted as saying.
The worst drought in the region in 60 years has triggered a famine in two regions of southern Somalia and forced hundreds of thousands to flee their homes. The dry spell has hit hardest in war-torn Somalia but has also wreaked havoc for farmers across the region in Djibouti, Ethiopia, Kenya and Uganda. “This food crisis… is another startling example of why international partners need to put food first,” World Bank president Robert Zoellick said.
Fleeing famine in Somalia
24 Jul – Source: Channel 4 news – 3.24min
The head of the world’s biggest aid agency has told Channel 4 News she is appealing to the humanity of al-Shabab militants who are preventing food from reaching more than two million people in southern Somalia. Jonathan Rugman reports.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?
Australia urges world to work on Somalia famine relief
24 Jul – Source: Reuters – 432 words
Australia urged the international community on Sunday to rally behind the U.N. relief effort in the famine-struck Horn of Africa or risk hundreds of thousands of people starving to death. Governments worldwide and the United Nations have faced criticism for their slow response to the severe drought, the worst in the region for decades, affecting some 11 million people across Somalia, Ethiopia, Kenya and Djibouti.
The U.N. World Food Programme (WFP) has said it cannot reach more than 2 million Somalis facing starvation in areas controlled by Islamist militants, who imposed a food aid ban in 2010 and have regularly threatened relief groups. “There is no uniformity in the security situation on the ground. We need to cut the U.N. some slack,” Australia’s Foreign Minister Kevin Rudd told a media conference in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi.
The United Nations has declared a famine in two regions of southern Somalia and warned it could spread further a field as people contend with the triple shock of drought, rising food prices amid critical shortages and conflict. Failure by the international community to provide support amid a raging insurgency across much of southern Somalia would mean the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people, mostly children, Rudd said.
“We stand back, sit on our hands and do nothing and wait for the perfect world to arrive. Or we get in there and we work now. This will be a complex, dangerous and risky task,” said Rudd, Australia’s former prime minister. WFP was among several groups ordered out of rebel-held areas last year who were now preparing to return.
http://www.reuters.com/
Desperate Somalis driven by famine into war-torn capital
24 Jul – Source: The Independent – 180 words
From a distance, the refugee camp at Badbado, a southern Mogadishu suburb known in better times for its football club, bears an uncanny resemblance to Glastonbury. Thousands of tents crazily colored and haphazardly jammed together, stretch as far as the eye can see. The narrow paths in between are packed with brightly dressed people passing to and fro. But up close it becomes apparent that the tents are makeshift affairs; and there is no light in the eyes of the people living in them. The lucky ones have been given plastic orange sheeting to drape over fragile frames of thorn scrub; many newer arrivals have had to make do with scraps of cloth scavenged from rubbish heaps. None of the tents offers adequate protection from the stupefying heat.
This is the reality behind the UN’s announcement this week that the drought crisis in two provinces of southern Somalia is now, officially, a famine, meaning that more than 30 per cent of children are suffering acute malnutrition and that, each day, four out of every 10,000 of them are dying from it.
Somalia urges ‘international intervention’ in fight against famine, drought
24 Jul – Source: VOA – 421 words
An official of Somalia’s Transitional Federal Government (TFG) is calling for “international intervention” to help his administration combat drought and famine, which has forced thousands of Somalis to flee to neighboring countries.
Last week, the president of Somalia and the United Nations declared that famine has struck two regions: Bakol and Lower Shabelle. Government spokesman Omar Osman also accused the hardline Islamic insurgent group, al-Shabaab, of thwarting humanitarian relief efforts.
“The situation is very grave [and] for us, our action is very limited due to the extreme nature of the drought,” said Omar. “We have seen an influx of refugees or internally displaced people fleeing from regions controlled by al-Shabaab moving to government controlled areas.” Described by Washington as a terrorist group with links to al-Qaeda, al-Shabaab militants control much of southern and central Somalia, while the government controls only parts of the capital, Mogadishu.
Omar said the TFG is working closely with international humanitarian groups to help mitigate the effect of the drought, despite its meager resources. “Our government has done a lot by mobilizing the resources that it has by bringing in more international aid agencies to Mogadishu and also appealing to the international community [for help, with] the prime minister personally taking the initiative,” said Omar.
Aid groups criticize US response to East Africa drought
24 Jul – Source: VOA – 904 words
While the U.S. government has increased its aid to help those affected by the devastating drought in the Horn of Africa, aid groups have criticized the slow response, as well as anti-terrorist laws which they say are impeding help to victims in the worst affected areas of Somalia.
Aid agencies have criticized the United States and other Western governments for failing to respond quickly enough to the more than 10 million people in need in drought-ravaged areas of the Horn of Africa. The worsening drought, which forecasters have warned about for months, is being described as the worst in the region in six decades.
An official for the British-based aid agency Oxfam said there has been a breakdown of the world’s collective responsibility to act. Other aid activists have said that like for other hunger situations in Africa in recent years, substantial help is starting to arrive only after the disaster reaches a catastrophic scale.
Sarah Margon, with the U.S. group Center for American Progress, says major responses seem to have been triggered by a United Nations declaration that two regions in Somalia are now in a state of famine. “As the numbers come out, the word famine really starts to move people and it starts to peak the interest of the international community and the average citizen in a way that a humanitarian crisis unfortunately does not always get people active and engaged,” she said. The U.S. government announced it would give an additional $28 million in aid to Somalis, to help them both inside Somalia and in refugee camps in Kenya, bringing its aid total this year in food and emergency assistance in the Horn of Africa to $431 million.
But Jeremy Konyndyk, with the U.S.-based group Mercy Corps, says he would still like to see outside donor contributions go up. “While in absolute terms they are quite large, they are still not enough relative to the need and even they are considerably less than they were even if you go back to three years ago, when there was a lesser crisis in the Horn,” he said. Aid activists also say-long term aid efforts, including agricultural ones such as the current U.S. Feed the Future initiative, which are often touted as solutions to end hunger around the world, often get burdened in bureaucracy and lack the necessary follow through and resources to be effective.
Somalians face hunger and fear in Kenya’s refugee camps
24 Jul – Source: The Guardian – 931 words
“It has been a terrible experience. There were eight of us and we had to survive on just a few kilos of flour for five days. Hunger and thirst haunted us during the whole journey.” Holding her year-old grandson in her arms, her face brushed by the dusty morning desert wind, Sarura Ali and her family have just arrived in the north-eastern Kenyan refugee centre of Dadaab, after fleeing from the drought in the Somali village of Waldid. “The heat was unbearable, so we were forced to walk at night. Every step we took was in the dark, fearfully.”
Several hundred people have gathered at the registration point at Daghaley, one of three refugee camps around Dadaab. The family-run businesses of these small farmers and cattle herders from Somalia have been wiped out by the worst drought in the Horn of Africa for 60 years. They patiently wait to be registered by agents of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). Most came here after weeks on foot in the desert, unable to afford any transport. They walked for days at the mercy of bandits in the porous border area between Somalia and Kenya.
This year alone, more than 100,000 Somalis have fled from the lack of rain in their country to shelter in what has become the biggest refugee camp complex in the world. They are escaping a war zone. The Islamic militants of al-Shabab, who control much of the country outside the capital, Mogadishu, and are fighting an insurgency against the transitional federal government, have vowed to keep most international aid workers away, despite the situation.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/