Somalia is at the epicentre of a devastating drought which has left 13 million people across the Horn of Africa hungry
NAIROBI (AlertNet) – Horn of Africa leaders on Friday rallied behind Somalia’s embattled government at a summit in Nairobi, supporting its efforts to oust Islamic militants from famine zones in the south of the war-torn country.
The presidents of Kenya, Ethiopia, Tanzania, Somalia and South Sudan met to discuss solutions to drought which has left 13 million people across the region hungry. Somalia is at the epicentre of the crisis, with famine declared in parts of the south in July.
“If there was full security, we are sure that the people in the famine areas would have been saved,” said Somali President Sharif Sheikh Ahmed. “But due to the fact that that areas are controlled by al Shabaab, which does not allow food aid through, it’s allowed these people to suffer,”
Al Shabaab rebels, allied to al Qaeda, have refused to allow the United Nations to deliver food relief into the areas they control. The U.N. said 750,000 people face imminent death from starvation.
The U.N. said on Monday that the famine is likely to spread across all of southern Somalia by the end of the year.
In a communiqué at the end of the summit, the leaders called for the African Union Mission in Somalia and Somalia’s Transitional Federal Government (TFG) to “extend the areas of control in which Somalis can live and prosper in safety.”
The internationally-backed TFG controls little more than the capital city, Mogadishu, which the rebels quit last month.
The summit also called upon the United Nations to bolster the mandate of the African Union Mission in Somalia from being passive “peace keeping” to pro-active “peace enforcement” and for U.N. troops to be deployed to boost their firepower.
Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi called for the international community to support a plan to create “corridors of humanitarian assistance” to facilitate the delivery of food aid to people in Shabaab-controlled territory.
But observers are wary that this may be a pretext for military intervention. Ethiopian forces routed an Islamist administration in power in Mogadishu in early 2007 and it makes regular incursions into Somalia to protect its border.
Humanitarian corridors take months to set up and require a large number of troops.
“We should question whether humanitarian corridors will be of assistance in the current situation,” Mark Bowden, the U.N.’s humanitarian coordinator for Somalia, told AlertNet.
“We’ll see a bit more deterioration [in the famine situation] in the next month. But I think after that the indications are, through the International Committee of the Red Cross and others, that really quite a lot of assistance will be getting into the south.”
EXODUS POSES SECURITY THREAT
Ethiopia and Kenya have borne the bulk of the refugee exodus from Somalia. Camps on their borders are overwhelmed as thousands of hungry people arriving to seek help each day.
“With the large number of people arriving at the camps on a daily basis it has become more difficult to control the smuggling of small arms and light weapons,” said Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki.
“It has also been a challenge to deal with cross-border crimes, illicit trade and other activities, including the entry of undesirable elements.”
Somali leaders adopted a roadmap this week designed to lead to elections within a year and to end a string of fragile transition governments that have failed to bring peace or meaningful political reform to the anarchic country.
There will be a further meeting on the hunger crisis in the Horn of Africa at the United Nations’ headquarters in New York on Sept. 24.
(Editing by Rebekah Curtis)
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