Aid agencies need $11 million to provide water and sanitation to displaced Somalis – UN

Aid agencies in Somalia are appealing for $11 million to provide the hundreds of people displaced by fighting in the capital with emergency water and sanitation programmes, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) reported today.

Over 200,000 people have fled Mogadishu since fighting broke out between the Government and the opposition Al-Shabab and Hisb-ul-Islam groups in early May, in what the UN refugee agency has described as the biggest exodus from the capital since Ethiopian forces intervened in Somalia in 2007.

OCHA said that those most in need of water, sanitation and hygiene services include more than 600,000 people displaced by clashes since 2007 and who are settled in the Afgooye corridor outside Mogadishu.

Aid agencies are currently only able to supply two to 8 litres of water per person per day in that area, while between 7.5 and 15 litres – less than one flush of an average toilet – is considered the minimum needed for survival, according to OCHA.

There is also currently one latrine for every 212 displaced people in the Afgooye corridor.

A major concern is that effect the lack of water is having on efforts to prevent the spread of communicable diseases in overcrowded situations.

In addition, the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) requires $3.3 million before the end of July to maintain life-saving operations for more than 1 million conflict-affected people, while current emergency funding allocated for non-governmental organizations (NGOs) is likely to be exhausted within the next two months.

Over 2.1 million is also needed to provide water to drought-affected communities in Puntland, Somaliland and other areas in the south-central region of the country, where more than 227,000 people are currently subsisting on 2 litres of water per day or less.

Violence continues in the Horn of Africa nation despite the signing of a UN-facilitated peace accord last year, as well as the election of President Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed and the formation of a new Government in February.