UN experts urge action to facilitate food aid deliveries to malnourished Somalis
With insecurity, massive displacement and piracy hampering efforts to delivery food aid to Somalis suffering from malnutrition, two independent United Nations experts today urged international action to address the problem.
With insecurity, massive displacement and piracy hampering efforts to delivery food aid to Somalis suffering from malnutrition, two independent United Nations experts today urged international action to address the problem.
Difficulties in delivering life-saving assistance “exacerbate the widespread chronic nutrition crisis that in certain regions of Somalia has reached emergency levels of global acute malnutrition,” said the Special Rapporteur on the right to food, Jean Ziegler, and the Independent Expert on the situation of human rights in Somalia, Ghanim Alnajjar, in a statement released in Geneva.
They noted that 200,000 Somalis in the Gedo region, many suffering from severe malnutrition, only recently received an aid delivery after awaiting humanitarian assistance for six months.
The experts voiced alarm at the difficulties and delays encountered at crossing points on the Kenya-Somalia border, some of which have been closed or operating at a very low level since January. They noted that trucks are now being allowed to cross, and expressed for a permanent solution for humanitarian shipments across the Kenya-Somalia border.
“The experts are also disturbed to learn that incidents, including theft of food from beneficiaries particularly from minority groups, continue to occur during and immediately after food distribution,” the statement said, blaming hundreds of roadblocks for impeding food delivery and allowing for “abusive taxation by rogue officials and assorted militias.”
The experts urgently call on the Somali Transitional Federal Government (TFG) to facilitate the transport of food aid, end abusive taxation and ensure security and non-discrimination in the distribution of food aid.
They also urged the Government of Kenya to cooperate to facilitate the swift delivery of food assistance, while calling for neighbouring countries as well as the international community to support the TFG in fighting piracy off Somalia’s coast.