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Women and children face starvation as Somali rebels halt food aid
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By Hayley Jarvis for SOS Children
Millions of women and children face hunger after the World Food Programme pulled out of southern Somalia because of threats from powerful Islamist rebels. The United Nations food agency said yesterday it was closing six of its offices in the south, which affects close to one million vulnerable people, more than a third of the people it feeds in Somalia, mainly women and children. It is the agency’s biggest shut-down in years and the UN has stepped up its aid work in neighbouring Kenya and Ethiopia and the Somali capital, to cater for masses of people expected to flee the affected areas. Drought and war have left more than 109,000 young children and many more adults dependent on the feeding centres run by the agency, as Somali farmers cannot supply enough food without help. But armed extremist group al-Shabaab, which controls most of south Somalia has accused international agencies of acting as foreign spies and ruining local farming by forcing Somalis to rely on imports.
Four of the aid agency’s workers have been killed in Somalia since August. In November, al-Shabaab issued a string of demands to aid agencies including removing women from their jobs and £12,000 payment for protection every six months from each regional office. When the WFP refused, it was ordered to cease all operations by 1 January. "We've postponed this decision for as long as we could," said WFP’s Peter in Nairobi. "But there's a moment that comes when the risks involved are too high. Rising threats and attacks on humanitarian operations, as well as the imposition of a string of unacceptable demands, have made it virtually impossible." "WFP's humanitarian operations in southern Somalia have been under escalating attacks from armed groups, leading to this partial suspension of humanitarian food distributions in much of southern Somalia," the agency said. Al-Shabaab is celebrating the withdrawal. "It is our great pleasure to see WFP and the other spy agencies suspend their involvement," Sheikh Ibrahim Garweyn, head of public affairs, told Reuters news agency. "We will never allow them to come here again. We have great land and we can grow our own crops."
But lawless Somalia, which has been in turmoil since 1991 when its central government collapsed, has not historically been able to feed itself. After nearly two decades of constant conflict, even a good harvest meets less than a third of the country's food needs. Groups such as al-Shabab want to impose a hard-line interpretation of Islamic law on the country.
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