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Somali drought crisis worsens, mortality risk grows, UN warns

Somali drought crisis worsens, mortality risk grows, UN warns

Abandoned houses due to drought in Puntland, northeastern Somalia
The drought crisis in war-torn Somalia is turning increasingly acute and spreading to regions previously spared, with half the country’s 7 million people in need of aid, an increasing risk of deaths, and insufficient international donor response, a senior United Nations official said today.

“Somalia needs to be seen as a priority case,” UN Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator Mark Bowden told a news briefing in New York. “The implications of not responding now are a future of miserable destitution but also the potential to tip the region into a far greater level of crisis through the movement of Somalia’s population out of the country if assistance isn’t provided…

“We have critical shortages in the water, sanitation, health and nutrition areas which endanger the relief operation at the moment. We need to have a far clearer view from the donor community itself as to the continued commitments for the relief programme to the end of this year,” he added, calling the current aid insufficient.

Mr. Bowden noted that Somalia hosts the biggest displaced population globally at the moment, with some 1.5 million displaced “living in conditions which are, I think, some of the worst for displaced populations in the world.

“Before this I worked in (Sudan’s war-torn region of) Darfur, and I’m concerned that conditions for the displaced populations in Somalia are if anything worse than in Darfur,” he said.

He said the problem was exacerbated because Somalia is essentially a pastoralist trading economy and there have been high cattle death rates.

“A large proportion of the population are losing their livelihoods and we are, I believe, this year at a critical point,” he added, noting that the effects of the drought had now spread from its epicentre in central and southern Somalia to Somaliland and Puntland in the north.

He stressed that relief operations in Somalia are challenging. “It is the most difficult and complex environment for humanitarian organizations to work,” he said. “We have, however, despite attacks on humanitarian workers, despite the many obstacles that exist in Somalia, been able to maintain humanitarian assistance.”

Meanwhile, the 33-member International Contact Group on Somalia (ICG), which is seeking to bring peace and stability to a country that has had no functioning central government for nearly 20 years, met in New York today, with the top UN political official warning that the whole world will pay a heavy price if their efforts falter.

“It is now critical that we deploy concrete and meaningful assistance to the TFG (Transitional Federal Government) to enable it to consolidate its position, establish institutions that would allow it to address the needs of the people and begin to deliver concrete peace dividends,” Under-Secretary-General B. Lynn Pascoe said.

The TFG, assisted by a nascent African Union mission know as AMISOM, is battling Islamic militant movements that control much of the south. AMISOM is slated to achieve its full strength of 8,000 personnel by the end of the year and the UN is working hard to expedite a support package for the mission, Mr. Pascoe noted.

“We believe that our support for the Transitional Federal Government and to the Somali people will be further enhanced as we establish a UN presence in Mogadishu (the war-battered capital) in the near future, security conditions permitting,” he added.