Thousands of people living in refugee camps in southern Somalia have run out of food since United Nations food aid deliveries ceased due to increasing insecurity.
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"What little food we had is gone; we have had no help in almost three months," said Zeinab Sheikh Hassan, a Somali refugee and mother of eight interviewed by the humanitarian news agency IRIN (see full story below).
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Over the last few years, Somalia has become an increasingly hostile environment for humanitarian aid workers, who provide crucial assistance to those affected by the country's protracted conflict. "Aid workers, who had managed to assist Somali communities even during the most lawless periods before 2006, have been the targets of dozens of killings and kidnappings in 2008 and now watch helplessly from neighboring Kenya as the situation spirals out of control," wrote Human Rights Watch (HRW) in December. Some groups, including the UN World Food Program, have been forced to suspend operations in certain parts of the country.
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Somalia deservedly occupies the uncoveted top position in the 2008 Failed States Index. In 2006, following 16 violent years without a government, a coalition of Islamic courts brought the capital, Mogadishu, under its control, ushering in "both ominously harsh rule and unprecedented stability," according to HRW. Shortly thereafter, Ethiopia -- with U.S. support -- intervened militarily in Somalia to suppress what Ethiopian officials saw as a rising national security threat. The ensuing conflict "pits the Ethiopian forces and Somalia's ineffectual, internationally-backed transitional government against a powerful but fragmented insurgency" and has been marked by routine abuses by all warring parties. For more background on politics, conflict, and development in Somalia, see OneWorld.net's Somalia country guide.
Source: Oneworld.net
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