Dagehaley Camp

JOHANNESBURG, 2 August 2011 (IRIN) – Increasing numbers of Ethiopians and Somalis fleeing war, drought and poverty in their home countries face arrest, deportation and detention as they try to make their way to the south of the continent.

For most the goal is South Africa – the only country in the region where refugees and asylum-seekers have freedom of movement and the right to work rather than being confined to camps. But as the number of migrants from the Horn of Africa seeking asylum in South Africa has reached unprecedented levels, border authorities have started refusing them entry.

“There’s a new unofficial policy since the beginning of May where Somali and Ethiopian nationals are being informed they’ll not be given asylum by the South African government,” said Abdul Hakim, chairperson of the Somali Community Board, a local organization representing the interests of Somalis.  Hakim said that before the crackdown, about 1,500 Somalis were entering South Africa every month. With official borders closed to them, many were now entering the country illegally and then making their way to refugee reception centres to apply for asylum.

Deputy Director-General of South Africa’s Department of Home Affairs Jackie McKay denied there had been any change of policy but Kaajal Ramjathan-Koogh, who heads the Refugee and Migrant Rights Programme at Lawyers for Human Rights, said her organization had also observed “a definite shift away from accepting large numbers of refugees from Somalia and Ethiopia”.  “From a Home Affairs point of view… they’ve been seeing very large numbers arriving in the last two months and they’re not willing to accept the entire continent’s refugee burden,” she told IRIN.  An issue brief by Roni Amit of the African Centre for Migration and Society at the University of Witwatersrand published in June suggests that the Home Affairs Department has been denying entry to asylum-seekers based on the principle that they should have sought asylum in the first safe country they reached. Amit points out that no such principle exists in international or domestic law.  “By denying entry to asylum-seekers based on the mere fact of their transit through another country, South Africa is contravening its obligations under international law,” Amit writes. “This practice increases the risk that individuals will be returned to the life-threatening situations from which they fled.”

 Knock-on effects

South Africa’s unofficial shift in policy has had a knock-on effect in neighbouring countries which had previously had a fairly tolerant attitude to the movement of migrants through their countries en route to South Africa. Zimbabwe’s state-run newspaper, The Herald, reported in July that immigration officers manning the country’s northern borders had been instructed not to admit illegal immigrants, especially those from Somalia and Ethiopia, who “pretend as if they want to seek refugee status” only to disappear into neighbouring countries, particularly South Africa.

Marcellin Hepie, country representative for the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) in Zimbabwe, said the country had been receiving high numbers of migrants from the Horn of Africa in recent months with 646 Somalis and Ethiopians picked up and transported to Tongorara refugee camp in Manicaland Province since mid-May.  “Before their [asylum-seeker] cases are adjudicated some of them vanish, presumably for South Africa. Normally they’ll wait around long enough to receive their food and non-food items and then off they go,” he told IRIN. “It is eroding the asylum procedure here and it could eventually backfire.”  He also noted that since mid-May crossing into South Africa for this group of migrants, “has not been as smooth as it used to be”.

“Many have been sent back to Zimbabwe and detained at Beitbridge [border post]. No one has shared any official change of policy from South Africa, but in practice there have been changes,” he said.  According to Natalia Perez of the International Organization for Migration (IOM), in the first quarter of 2011, 7,200 asylum-seekers registered at the Beitbridge border post as they crossed into South Africa. Perez said Zimbabwe had now closed its borders to “any migrant or asylum-seeker who cannot produce an ID”.  Now they’re being pushed backwards,” she told IRIN.

Dilemma for governments

The relatively recent phenomenon of mixed migration (which IOM defines as “complex migratory population movements that include refugees, asylum-seekers, economic migrants and other migrants”) from the Horn of Africa to the southern part of the continent presents a dilemma for governments in the region that are bound by international refugee laws but unwilling to bear the economic and security costs of allowing large numbers of undocumented migrants to travel through their countries.

The issue was the subject of a regional conference in Dar es Salaam in September 2010 where a number of recommendations were proposed for dealing with the influx such as greater regional cooperation, improved national policies and better collection of data on refugees and migrants. However, according to Katherine Harris, a regional protection officer with UNHCR, progress since the conference has been “slow going”, with attention and resources mainly focused on the current crisis in the Horn of Africa.  “The biggest thing is that we really need to come up with a regional approach to this issue,” she told IRIN.  Until recently, Mozambique was another popular transit country for Horn of Africa migrants intent on reaching South Africa. Since 2010, a steady stream of Ethiopians and Somalis have been arriving in the country, most of them having used the services of smugglers to take them by boat to the coastal town of Palma, just across the border with Tanzania. By the beginning of 2011, the numbers had increased significantly and the Mozambican authorities started restricting the movements of asylum-seekers outside of the country’s one refugee camp in Nampula Province.

 Mtwara prison

Starting in May, however, the number of asylum-seekers reaching the camp abruptly decreased as immigration officers started intercepting them and deporting them to Tanzania where 833 Ethiopians and Somalis, 45 of them children, are now being detained in Mtwara prison in the southeast of the country.  “We’re trying to find out why this is happening, and hoping to resolve the impasse in a way that will allow new arrivals to at least be screened,” said Carlos Zaccagnini, UNHCR’s country representative in Mozambique, who pointed out that the UN Convention on Refugees prohibits countries from rejecting, deporting or detaining asylum-seekers.  Responding to questions from the BBC, Mozambique’s interior minister said that some of the migrants were pretending to be refugees but had criminal intentions and were being turned away to guarantee the country’s security.  Lin Mei Li, a protection officer with UNHCR in Tanzania, said her office had been pushing the Tanzanian authorities to allow them to interview the detainees at Mtwara prison to determine which of them have genuine asylum-seeker claims. “Living conditions in the prison are not good, it’s over-crowded and there are not enough medicines,” she told IRIN. “We’re really worried about them.”

UNHCR is also trying to persuade the Tanzanian government to establish a reception centre that would provide humanitarian assistance to asylum-seekers rather than imprisoning them. The Zimbabwean government has asked IOM to set up something similar on its northern border with Mozambique. But Abdul Hakim of the Somali Community Board said that Somali asylum-seekers were still being imprisoned in Botswana, Mozambique and Malawi.  “They’re not taken to a court, they just stay in prison and they don’t know for how long. Because they entered the country illegally, they’re treated as illegal immigrants.”

http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?reportid=93403

Reproduced with the kind permission of IRIN 2011

Eritrea refugees in Shagarab Camp, Ethiopia (c) IRIN

ADDIS ABABA, 5 August 2011 (IRIN) – More and more Eritrean refugees, mostly educated young men, continue to arrive in Ethiopia, with the UN Refugee Agency, UNHCR, expressing concern over the rising numbers.

“Most say they left their country [to avoid] a prolonged military conscription, but they also say they want to join their families on the road,” Moses Okello, UNHCR’s representative in Ethiopia, told IRIN.

Ethiopia hosts at least 61,000 Eritrean refugees.  UNHCR has described the latest Eritrean refugee influx as a “silent crisis”, coming at a time when the Horn of Africa has been gripped by the worst drought in 60 years.  Okello said those arriving were in good condition compared with thousands of Somali refugees in Ethiopia’s Dolo Ado area in the southeast. On average, 1,300 Eritreans leave their country for Ethiopia every month, according to government statistics.

“The trend seems non-stop and yet increasing,” according to Ayalew Aweke, the deputy director of the government’s Administration for Refugees and Returnee Affairs (ARRA).  Ayalew said: “We are receiving additional refugees of between 1,200-1,500 every month. Most of them are unaccompanied youngsters.”

Disputed numbers

UNHCR, however, says about 800 to 1,000 Eritreans reached Ethiopian refugee camps in Shimelba, Maiaini and Adi-Harush in Tigray Regional state every month.  Ayalew said: “UNHCR’s figure does not include the number of refugees coming [through] other entry points from the usual 17 [official] ones.”

According to ARRA, some Eritreans come to Ethiopia after passing through other countries such as Sudan and Djibouti.  Kisut Gebregziabher, the UNHCR spokesman in Ethiopia, said: “At the moment, we are counting those that are screened and have refugee status in refugee centres. But we expect to have a relatively acceptable number, once they reach camps and get their status.”

However, Ayalew said to ascertain the exact number of Eritrean refugees was difficult because most of the refugees are nomadic and ethnic Afar. The Afar are also found in Ethiopia.  “They tend to live with the host community rather than coming to refugee centres,” Ayalew said.  Gebregziabher said UNHCR had noticed an “unusual trend” among the new arrivals of Eritrean refugees.

“We usually see women and children dominating when it comes to refugees; the case of Eritrean refugees is different, they are mainly young, educated, single men.”  “We are receiving additional refugees of between 1,200 -1,500 every month.” He added that most of them came from an urban background, with high-school diplomas and above. Gebregziabher attributed the shift to their trying to avoid conscription.  During a visit in July, the UN Assistant High Commissioner for Refugees, Erika Feller, said she was “alarmed and shocked” to see “a sea of young faces” and “youth denied for so many people”.

According to ARRA statistics, more than 55 percent of these Eritreans are between 18 and 30 years old.  “Most of them are not ready to spend time in refugee camps and that is why we are working on an out-of-camp policy aggressively,” Ayalew said.  In 2010, the Ethiopian government allowed Eritrean refugees to live in urban areas, a move intended to improve their access to services. The policy allowed more than 200 Eritrean students to continue their studies in Ethiopian universities.  “For this year, the same chance will be given to 700 students, after taking a proper entrance exam,” Ayalew said. Gebregziabher said some of the Eritrean students would be entering universities through a cost-sharing agreement supported by UNHCR.

Resettlement options

According to UNHCR, voluntary repatriation is not an option at the moment. Gebregziabher said the agency would pursue “resettlement as the only durable solution for Eritrean refugees. In fact, those who came before 2008 are expected to benefit from the resettlement programme offered by the United States,” he said.  In 2008, the US government agreed to receive 6,800 Eritrean refugees from various camps in Ethiopia.  “Over 2,000 Eritrean refugees have been resettled in the US so far,” Gebregziabher said. “This programme is expected to continue operating.”  According to Feller, resettlement placements offered by different countries were limited. However, she said the refugee agency would continue to advocate for an increase in resettlement opportunities.

Apart from the US, Canada, Sweden, Norway, New Zealand and Australia have shown interest in resettling Eritrean refugees.

http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?reportid=93433

Reproduced with the kind permission of IRIN 2011

Source: reuters // Reuters

By Richard Lough

NAIROBI, Aug 7 (Reuters) – African peacekeepers have forced Somalia’s al Shabaab Islamists to abandon their campaign to hold the capital Mogadishu, but the fighters’ retreat hardly ends the country’s bloodshed and could herald a wave of al Qaeda-style suicide attacks.

As convoys of al Shabaab pickup trucks with mounted machine guns sped from Mogadishu, President Sheikh Sharif Ahmed — whose rule is limited to the capital and propped up by 9,000 Ugandan and Burundian troops — held a news conference to declare victory.  The fighters, who still control most of the south of the country, insisted they would fight another day.  “We aren’t leaving you, but we have changed our tactics,” spokesman Sheikh Ali Mohamud Rage said on local radio.

Many Somalis and outside experts said it was too early for the government to declare a triumph. In a country long without effective central government and now suffering mass hunger from the worst drought in decades, peace remains a distant prospect.

But rifts among al Shabaab’s leaders, exacerbated by their handling of the famine, could also provide an opportunity to loosen the militia’s grip on the areas it controls.

RIFTS AMONG SHABAAB COMMANDERS

A string of offensives this year — led by the African peacekeeping force with Somalia’s army in tow — gradually tightened the noose around al Shabaab’s forces in Mogadishu.

Last month, the fighters lost control of the capital’s Bakara market, nerve-centre of their Mogadishu operations and a crucial source of revenue. That left them with little more than a few mostly-empty neighbourhoods of little strategic interest.

Those losses exposed rifts in al-Shabaab’s leadership between an international wing influenced by foreign fighters who favour guerrilla tactics like suicide bombings, and others who sought a conventional military strategy of holding territory.

The abandonment of Mogadishu suggests the international faction won the day.  “If that is the case then al Shabaab might leave other cities (under their control) like Baidoa and Afgoye, melt away in the population and turn to guerrilla warfare, explosions, assassinations or suicide attacks,” said Afyare Elmi at Qatar University’s International Affairs department.

Since 2007, Ahmed’s authority has effectively stretched only as far as the territory held by the peacekeepers. Winning Mogadishu might expand the government’s sway, Horn of Africa experts say, but there is little guarantee it will bring peace elsewhere.

Some even question the government’s ability to fill the power vacuum in the neighbourhoods abandoned by al Shabaab, warning that other militia could fill the void.  Ahmed “had to make that statement, he has to appear that he is in control. But Somalis will be laughing,” said London-based Somali analyst Hamza Mohamed. “There is not one single area of Mogadishu controlled solely by government troops.”  The militants still hold sway over much of central and southern Somalia, and have other sources of revenue, including taxes from ports and a cut of some ransoms paid to pirate gangs.

But al Shabaab is also confronted with mending internal rifts, made more stark by the famine gripping the south, where 2.8 million people require lifesaving food aid.  Early last month al Shabaab appeared to lift a ban on food aid, only then to seemingly backtrack. Its legitimacy has been shredded by attempts to halt people fleeing areas to seek food, said J. Peter Pham with U.S. think-tank the Atlantic Council.  “The ongoing hunger has exposed divisions between the hardline core leadership of al Shabaab which denies the crisis and refuses to allow aid in, and clan-based militia forces in various places … who have announced a willingness to allow humanitarian assistance to come in,” he said.

The famine is depriving al Shabaab of revenue and decimating its recruitment pool as hundreds of thousands of hungry people flee to Mogadishu and neighbouring Kenya and Ethiopia.

The erosion of legitimacy may offer Somalia’s government and Western powers an opportunity, said Mark Schroeder of global intelligence company Stratfor.  “(There are) foreign elements trying to figure out how to take advantage of the famine to undermine al Shabaab, not necessarily in a military way but more politically.” (Editing by James Macharia)

http://www.trust.org/alertnet/news/analysis-somalia-fighters-quit-capital-but-remain-a-threat/

Reproduced with the kind permission of Thompson Reuters Foundation 2011

Bulatlat.com

Turn on CNN, BBC or any other major Western media outlet and, aside from news about the Norway killer (not labeled as a terrorist because he’s not Muslim), the UK phone hacking scandal and the U.S. debt crisis, few international stories make the headlines. From Africa, a continent of 53 countries, there was one major story in recent weeks: drought in the Horn of Africa, which has led to a “famine” in Somalia (I put the word famine in quotation marks because it is a contentious classification that the UN has used to define the situation in Somalia).

Starving black babies with bloated bellies and crying mothers: these images, along with that of a white man talking into the camera while walking around a refugee camp, have been a near-constant feature flashing on television screens. We are bombarded with information on human suffering of heart-wrenching proportions (the current number is 11 million at risk of starvation), but all explanations of why more than a million people are at risk of dying point to one cursory tale, that of a recent drought that has devastated agricultural production in East Africa.

While the current drought and resulting food crisis in the Horn of Africa (Somalia, Djibouti, Ethiopia, Eritrea and northern Kenya) is indeed frightening, deserving of attention in Western media and a real humanitarian crisis, it is important to consider the history of Western “humanitarian” intervention in the country, which has not had a functional government since civil war topped the US-backed dictator Siad Barre in 1991. At a time when food agencies sponsored by the World Food Programme and USAID are calling for emergency relief supplies, it is opportune to take a look into Somalia’s past engagement with food aid to draw more than a few worthy lessons.

The US has an interest in getting rid of surplus food generated from subsidizing and purchasing grain at above-market prices from American farmers, and one of the ways it did so was to donate food to Somalia. The food was supposed to save millions of Somali refugees at risk of death from famine and warfare, but instead it almost single-handedly destroyed the Somali economy. Seeking income in a declining economy, Somalis fought to control remaining sources of revenue for their clans, and food aid had become the nation’s most valuable resource.

USAID began sending food aid to Somalia after Cuban and Ethiopian forces combined to push the Somali army out of the land in the Ogaden captured by the Somalis in 1979, although a number of aid agencies had been present in Somalia since a devastating 1975 drought. Ethnic Somalis who fled the fighting in Ethiopian territory became refugees in Somalia, and needed care as such. But politics played a role in determining who and how many refugees there were, with foreign journalists as well as American, Somali and UN officials producing different estimates based on their respective political agendas. Somalia expert Ioan Lewis noted that although the magnitude of the refugee problem was not originally recognized, estimates became part of a political terrain: “The actual number of refugees (which directly affected the aid budget) was highly controversial, the Somali authorities resisting all UNHCR attempts to enumerate them but settling for a “planning figure of 700,000” in the years directly following the war._

 Food aid diversion

Since the early 1980s, food aid, defined by USAID as “edible commodities donated to needy populations,” became the most traded commodity in the country as little oversight created favorable conditions for widespread theft of foodstuffs and their sale in the black market. Irrigation and farm-training projects funded by USAID destroyed the Somali nomadic way of life and their traditional coping strategies for drought, leaving them more vulnerable to famine and, in turn, more dependent on food aid to survive. The indigenous (albeit product of colonialism) agricultural economy was replaced by a food-aid based financial system that produced increasing demand for it. It became a political tool as those in power kept certain groups in refugees camps to control the allocation of food directed at the camps.

By 1981, Western media sources put Ogaden war refugee figures at “more than one million.”_ A USAID food aid inspector at the time, Michael Maren writes that guerilla warfare following the official end of the war led journalists and Somali officials to conclude that there were around 1.5 million Ogaden refugees in camps near Hargeisa. But the problem was that “the million and a half refugees” who were supposedly in Somalia didn’t exist. The Somali government liked to say 1.5 million. Journalists liked to say 1.5 million…I saw official reports from UNHCR and USAID that put the number at less than 400,000. The camps were filled mostly with women and children and old men.”_ A New York Times article from 1980 corroborated this, saying that “males older than 15 account for only 9 percent of the population of the refugee camps, which have become havens for the families of guerillas.”

Most Ogaden males over fifteen were not in refugee camps, but those who were had an important task—to divert food aid and ensure the cooperation of camp residents. Most agree that the National Refugee Commission (NRC) and established clan and rebel networks within the camps stole or redirected more than half the food aid sent at the time (see Maren, NY Times). While much of the food aid fell into the hands of private businessmen who sold it in the market, a good portion of the stolen food profits supported the ongoing guerilla war against Ethiopia by funding arms for the Western Somali Liberation Front. This, in turn, created more refugees, which supported the ever-increasing influx of food aid. As Lewis also noted, “the male population of the camps provided a captive reserve source of manpower for illegal recruitment into Somalia’s armed forces.”

Some figures put theft of refugee aid funds at 80 percent, of which, most went to the Somali army.

Yet the theft of food aid was not limited to Barre’s political endeavors. Food aid became Somalia’s most valuable commodity, knocking home-grown sorghum, wheat and rice off the map in favor of American substitutes. Ordinary Somalis began looking to food aid for a way out of poverty, and many succeeded. Maren tells the story of Abdi Ahmed Yusuf, who, as an elder living in the Ogaden refugee camps in Beledweyne in the early 1980s, got rich from food aid: “I was buying food from refugees at a good price and selling it in Jalalaqsi town and returning with food, fuel, and watches that I would sell back to refugees. Soon I was bringing food to Mogadishu directly and making a lot of money. Then I married CARE wife. I was happy.”_ Yusuf was earning enough money from the sale of food aid in neighboring towns that he was able to marry another wife, whom he referred to using the name of the NGO responsible for food rationing in Beledweyne: CARE International.

Somalis have not stopped looting food aid since the imports began after the 1975 drought, and yet Western development agencies have not slowed the pace of shipments in more than twenty years. In that time span, countless articles have been written about the theft of food aid–most with the same general storyline: Somali warlords, armed through various nefarious acts, steal shipments of food aid destined for Somalia’s most needy, who will starve if they do not get their rations. Humanitarian agencies, who just want to see that the food reaches the hungry, are caught in the crossfire of vicious Somali clan politics that dominate the lawless society.

But despite widespread knowledge that less than half of food aid imported to Somalia is delivered to those who need it most, Western relief agencies kept pouring in the food. This common account of how food aid ends up in the market is misleading because it places the blame almost entirely on Somalis, despite the minimal control they have over the operational capacity of major international NGOs.

A New York Times article from 1992 illustrates American relief effort thinking:

To try to keep food prices down, Andrew Natsios, the coordinator of the stepped up American relief effort to Somalia, said Washington would start selling relief food at very low prices to Somali merchants in Kenya and Djibouti, who would then sell it at controlled and monitored prices inside the country. He said it was hoped that cheaper prices would force the merchants inside the country to bring their prices down. “We want to flood the country with food,” Mr. Natsios said.

Natsios, the head of USAID food assistance at the time, could not have been unaware of USAID’s history in Somalia. USAID had been “flooding the country with food” for over ten years, and in that time Somalia had descended into civil war, while the number of people “at risk of starvation” had only increased. Poorly monitored food aid had empowered Somali businessmen and rebel groups, fomenting clan conflict at the expense of the national economy. “Flooding the country with food” undermined any local agricultural production, leaving Somalis with a diminished domestic food production capacity and a severe dependence on cheap, imported food. USAID, which had become the most powerful actor in Somalia, was treating food aid like a commodity and hoping the problem of hunger would solve itself if enough food was sent in, rather than promoting domestic agricultural production. Instead of looking at food aid’s role in perpetuating the ongoing conflicts, USAID looked at the conflicts as an impetus for increased relief assistance. The American response to the grave problems created by unchecked food aid has been, simply put, more food aid.

A 2009 UN investigation noted that “thousands of sacks of food aid were being diverted from starving refugees and openly sold for profit” and savvy businessmen were “inventing” refugee camps to bring relief funding while “the food could hardly be more needed” for the 3.5 million Somalis who rely on the UN’s World Food Programme for meals._ That Western media outlets are still writing about the need to protect Somali food aid from theft today highlights the inherent problem with the relief effort in Somalia. Instead of improving after twenty years of Western food aid, Somalia’s food problem is only getting worse. From 400,000 refugees at risk after the Ogaden War, there are now 3.5 million, roughly half Somalia’s population.

USAID failure

USAID’s failure to achieve anything more than a “more money/more food aid,” short term solution, comes to light when we look again at its “Refugee self-reliance program” final report of 1985: “An implicit assumption untested in this design is that the refugees want to farm or engage in business even if it means losing their rations. In none of the sub-projects have the refugees given up any rations due to their involvement in the Project. Therefore, it is, strictly speaking, impossible to say that they would engage in the activities or sub-projects if it meant losing their rations. At the time of implementation it was impractical to reduce the rations or stop them.” (Report 2 p 13). Despite the program’s stated objective of reducing refugee dependency on aid programs, no effort was made to cut daily food ration consumption. Refugees remained reliant on food aid throughout the course of the five-year program, fundamentally undercutting their agency to provide for themselves. Although this report is from 1985, USAID’s strategy in Somalia has hardly changed from the incredibly simplistic analysis that might as well be its ethos—people are starving, so we’ll send them food.

Food aid so clearly destroyed the economy that today even al-Shabab, the Islamist rebel group who have been called more vicious and extreme than the Taliban, has recognized its caustic powers. The Islamic Courts Union splinter group wrote in a statement released in November 2009 to the World Food Programme that “the bringing of immense quantities of free food rations, and specifically during the harvest season, has been devastating to the agriculture industry in Somalia. It has been decided that the WFP must immediately refrain from bringing food rations from outside of Somalia and rather purchase food from Somali farmers, and then that food will be distributed to the needy in Somalia.”_ This statement reveals the pragmatism of “terrorist” group Al-Shabab, who recognizes that the key to building a successful state relies on a strong, self-sufficient agricultural sector. By promoting domestic agricultural production, al-Shabab is pitching its nation-building capacities against the futile Western-backed government to a people desperate for stability.

Today, Al-Shabab is mocked and criticized for prohibiting the distribution of Western food aid in areas it controls. But it would appear that all parties, except the USAID and the UN, have recognized that excessive food aid, a gesture that harms more than helps despite its humanitarian façade, is detrimental to Somalia’s reconstruction. The West’s crocodile tears for Somalia, a country it has helped destroy, should be revealed for what they are. If the West wants to make a long-term positive impact in the region it should abandon the corrupt, failed Transitional Federal Government (TFG) and work with the government of Somaliland, an autonomous territory that has flourished without the help of Western aid.

1 Lewis, Ioan. Understanding Somalia and Somaliland. P 67

2 Cowell, Allan. “Somalia, Enfeebled by Hunger, Still Export Food”. The New York Times 25 Sep 1981.

3 Maren p. 97.

4 Wren, Christopher. “Million Ogaden Refugees Clinging to Life in Somalia “. The New York Times 24 May 1980.

5 Maren p. 94.

6 Lewis p. 67.

7 African Rights and Mines Advisory Group, ‘Violent deeds live on: landmines in Somalia and Somaliland’, December 1993; and J Maxted & A Zegeye, ‘State disintegration and human rights in Africa’, International Journal of Comparative Sociology, 38(1/2), 1997, pp 64-86.

8 Ibid 110

9 Perlez, Jane. Theft of Food Aid is a Business in Starving Somalia in NY Times 4 Sep 1992

10 Rugman, Jonathan. “UN food stolen from the starving in Somalia fake camp fraud”. The Times London 15 June 2009.

11 BBC. “Somali rebels order UN to stop food imports”. BBC News 25 November 2009.

http://bulatlat.com/main/2011/07/29/drought-and-famine-in-somalia-lessons-for-recipients-of-western-%E2%80%98humanitarian%E2%80%99-aid/

Reproduced under Bulatlat.com’s syndication policy 2011.

Yemen's heavily armed society © Adel Yahya/IRIN

SANA’A, 4 August 2011 (IRIN) – As violence in Yemen continues and the death toll mounts, observers see not only threats to the country’s emerging democracy, but also the possibility of all-out civil war.

“What is happening in Yemen is no longer a peaceful revolution. It is rather a conflict for power between [President] Saleh and the opposition alliance [JMP], which dates back to 2006, after the latter challenged the election results which gave Saleh a third mandate, claiming it was manipulated,” says Mujeeb Abdurrahman a political scientist at Hodeidah University.  “We fear that violence may put an end to the emerging democratic experience Yemen has seen since 1993,” he told IRIN.

Even the UN, which sent an envoy to Yemen to assess the situation, agrees that if something is not done quickly to implement a viable transfer of power, there could be very serious consequences.  “Yemen’s political leaders have two options: either to reach an agreement accepted by all to start necessary steps for a practical transition period, or to face collapse and `Somalization’ of the country,” UN Envoy to Yemen Jamal Bin Omar said at a Sana’a press conference on 29 July.

On 30 July, at least 250 people were reportedly killed in clashes between opposition gunmen and Republican Guards in Arhab District, 20km north of Sana’a; and at least 40 others were killed in fighting in Abyan Governorate between armed militants and government troops. Dozens of others have been killed or injured in similar clashes in Taiz Governorate, 250km south of Sana’a.

The economy has lost US$13 billion over the past six months, and the number of poor people has gone up from seven to nine million (out of a population of 23 million), according to local think-tank Studies and Economic Media Centre.

More people displaced

The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) puts the number of displaced people in Abyan at more than 80,000 in mid-July, and this is in addition to the 300,000 from earlier conflicts between the government and Houthi-led Shia rebels in Sa’dah and Amran governorates.  Amid rumours that Saleh could be back (from Saudi Arabia where he is ostensibly undergoing medical treatment) in the first week of August, Sheikh Sadeq al-Ahmar, who leads the powerful Hashid Tribal Confederation, warned on 31 July that “Saleh will no longer rule us as long as I am still alive.” The announcement is being seen by observers as an early warning of large-scale clashes between pro- and anti- government forces.

“The people are divided… the army is divided and tribal leaders are divided… Neither party can defeat the other except through ballot boxes in free and fair elections, Mohammed al-Ruaini, a leading lawyer and a former member of parliament, told IRIN in Sana’a; he also warned of the danger of civil war.

Meanwhile, Abbas al-Musawa, a still serving Yemeni diplomat in Lebanon, suggests that an early presidential vote, excluding Saleh and his relatives and “supervised by the UN, the Gulf Cooperation Council, the USA and the European Union to ensure its integrity and transparency” is the only chance the country has of overcoming the current turmoil.  JMP, backed by young protesters, insist that Saleh must quit and hand all powers to his vice-president, Abdurabu Mansour Hadi, before any talk of fresh elections.  Since his departure for Saudi Arabia in early June, Saleh has managed to cling on to power thanks in part to his son Ahmad, who commands 23 Republican Guard divisions and around 40 percent of the army.

Reproduced by kind permission of IRIN 2011

Somali refugee child

MOGADISHU/NAIROBI/DADAAB, 4 August 2011 (IRIN) – Even as the UN announced that famine had spread to more areas in south-central Somalia, reports from the capital, Mogadishu, indicate that the suffering of the drought-displaced, mostly women and children, was increasing, with reports that government forces and Al-Shabab militia were hampering aid distribution in areas under their control.

“The situation is such that most of those reaching Mogadishu are mainly women and children because most of the men have remained in the Al-Shabab-held areas since they fear being arrested by government forces for allegedly being pro-Al Shabab,” Su’di Mohamed Ali, director of administration and finance in the Ministry of Women Development and Family Affairs, told IRIN. “Al-Shabab itself often prevents men from going to government-controlled areas.”

Anbiya Abdulkadir Osman, a mother of five, told IRIN her husband was shot dead on 27 July by an Al-Shabab militiaman near Afgoye “after he refused to obey the militiamen not to go along with us, his family. Now I am left alone; I live on the street without food, shelter or water. I pray to God to send help my way.”  However, Ali Barre Hirsi, also known as Ali-Gab, the commander of the Central Police Division of Mogadishu, said: “We have heard from some members of the parliament that Al-Shabab forces the IDPs to go to 50km, but we do not have any more information about it. Of course our duty is to control the security of the government-controlled regions such as Mogadishu and we capture the suspected persons and send them for trial. So far, we have arrested several persons who were accompanying the drought-displaced people and we transferred them to the intelligence agency to investigate allegations that they are part of Al-Shabab. They will be brought before the judiciary as soon as the investigations are complete.”

Dismissing as baseless claims that government forces were diverting food aid, Hirsi said the police did not interfere with aid distribution, it “only secured the IDP camps”. An IDP had told IRIN that government forces were grabbing the food aid provided by aid organizations.

 Worst humanitarian crisis

On 3 August, the UN announced that three new areas in southern Somalia – parts of Middle Shabelle region, the Afgoye Corridor and parts of Mogadishu – had deteriorated into a famine situation.

The Afgoye Corridor, 25km west of Mogadishu, has been hosting an estimated 400,000 internally displaced persons (IDPs) since 2007.  According to the Famine and Early Warning System Network (FEWS NET), the drought situation is the most severe humanitarian crisis in the world today and Africa’s worst food security crisis since Somalia’s 1991/1992 famine.  On 20 July, the UN declared famine in Lower Shabelle and southern Bakool regions in southern Somalia, warning that the situation could worsen because the drought had been compounded by insecurity, lack of aid and food price inflation.

Another round of the nutrition survey expected to begin on 8 August is likely to confirm that the famine had spread to Gedo and Bay regions in south-central Somalia, said Grainne Moloney, the chief technical adviser of the UN Food and Agriculture Organization’s Food Security and Nutritional Analysis Unit (FSNAU) for Somalia.

FSNAU’s last survey recorded global acute malnutrition rates (GAM) of more than 50 percent in some parts of Bay and Gedo, she said. “The situation has probably deteriorated there.” A GAM value of more than 10 percent generally identifies an emergency. The malnutrition data and the rates of crude mortality recorded in Somalia are the worst anywhere in the world in the past 20 years, confirmed Moloney, “except for maybe North Korea [in the 1990s]; we don’t really have good data from there”.

FSNAU confirmed on 3 August that the famine had spread, based on outstanding nutrition data. “We had been awaiting results from those areas,” she said. Delivering aid to all the regions now part of the famine zone besides the Mogadishu IDP community remains problematic because of Al-Shabab’s control.

Moloney appealed to the donor community to help keep the aid flowing for at least the next 18 months. “The next rains expected in October will only lead to harvests in January [2012] – people have lost all their livestock, food prices are extremely high – it will take at least three or four seasons for them to recover. The famine conditions are not going anywhere soon.”

A man arrives at an IDP camp in Mogadishu: The UN has delcared famine in five areas of southern Somalia.  Officials of local civil society organizations have been trying to find shelter and food for the displaced arriving in Mogadishu.

“Here [the second bridge road in Mogadishu] we have about 250 families; we have distributed shelter for 100 people and we continue to seek shelter for the remaining 150 families,” Mohamed Abdi Dhodi, an official of the Abyan Organization, a local NGO, said. “In terms of food, we feed them once a day. We use at least three bags [50kg each] of rice a day yet we only received 25 bags from international aid organizations. Our problem is that we do not have medicine for the sick children and mothers.”

 Dadaab deteriorates

In refugee camps in Dadaab, northeastern Kenya, housing an estimated 400,000 Somalis, the situation is fast deteriorating as hundreds keep arriving daily, stretching basic services at the already congested camps.  Long-term camp residents, who have set up small businesses, told IRIN food prices had more than doubled and their customer numbers were shrinking.   “Life is becoming very difficult every day; we are now buying 1kg of sugar at Ksh120 [US$1.20] yet it used to be Ksh70 [$0.80] just the other day,” Omar Jelle, a father of one, who also takes care of eight relatives, told IRIN.

The start of Ramadan – the Muslim holy month of fasting – in early August has made matters worse for many refugee families who have to take in more arrivals daily.   “Every family is hosting at least two [new families] in a compound that was meant to accommodate only one family,” a refugee said. “As the new arrivals wait to be registered and get food, they share the little that older refugees have, even the little water available.”

At the same time, local Kenyan communities living around the Dadaab camps have expressed concern over pressure on land as refugee numbers continue to rise. The locals say the new arrivals are settling on land they use to graze their livestock.  Moreover, the locals have complained about lack of support from aid agencies assisting the refugees. “We expect to be considered because we are also affected by the drought,” Jama Ali, a local resident of Dadaab, told IRIN.

Reproduced with the kind permission of IRIN 2011, photograph reproduced with the kind permission of The Thompson Reuters Foundation.

http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?reportid=93422

A refugee woman feeds her malnourished child at the Dagahaley refugee camp, Dadaab

04 Aug 2011 01:00

Source: member // International Committee of the Red Cross

Somalia: striving to reach the people most in need, interview

The organization is asking donors for 67 million Swiss francs in additional funding, bringing its total 2011 budget for Somalia to over 120 million francs (more than 155 million US dollars).

“The move comes in response to a situation that is becoming ever more desperate,” said Jakob Kellenberger, the president of the ICRC. “Hundreds of thousands of Somalis face life-threatening food and water shortages.” The situation is the result of 20 years of armed conflict compounded by severe drought. The effects of previous dry spells, high inflation and the worldwide rise in food and fuel prices have further aggravated the long-standing crisis since the beginning of the year.

“In the central and southern parts of the country especially, where only a small number of humanitarian organizations are present on the ground, the need for aid cannot be overstated,” said Mr Kellenberger. “Despite the difficulty of operating in one of the most conflict-riven countries in the world, we cannot let people down. We are confident that we can deliver assistance successfully, in close cooperation with our partners from the Somali Red Crescent.”

The ICRC is active in all provinces of central and southern Somalia and able to carry out large-scale distributions. The budget extension will enable the ICRC to further expand its therapeutic feeding programmes and its food distributions to help people get by during the extremely difficult period until the next harvest in December. Some 49,000 malnourished children and 24,000 pregnant and lactating women will benefit from the supplementary and the therapeutic feeding programmes.

“A first round of food distributions completed this week by the ICRC covers the needs of 162,000 people in central and southern Somalia for the coming month,” said Mr Kellenberger. “The distributions were carried out as planned and without delay.” In addition, the ICRC and the Somali Red Crescent have started to expand services in existing outpatient therapeutic feeding centres and health-care facilities. In central and southern Somalia, the ICRC has provided over 250,000 people with household essentials and made clean water available for 400,000 people since April.

Food distributions constitute an emergency response to the most urgent needs. They are complemented by sustainable aid aimed at enabling the population to carry on their livelihoods with no outside help. Examples are the upgrading of wells and boreholes, irrigation schemes and other cash-for-work infrastructure projects to reduce farmers’ vulnerability to extreme weather conditions.

For further information, please contact:

Anna Schaaf, ICRC Nairobi, tel: +254 722 512 728

Nicole Engelbrecht, ICRC Geneva, tel: +41 22 730 22 71 or +41 79 217 32 17

ٌReproduced with the kind permission of The Thompson Reuters Foundation 2011

http://www.trust.org/alertnet/news/somalia-emergency-relief-for-over-a-million-people/

Somali Child in Refugee Camp

MOGADISHU/NAIROBI, 20 July 2011 (IRIN) – The humanitarian crisis in Somalia has degenerated into a famine in two regions and could get worse because respite from drought, a major cause of the crisis, which is compounded by insecurity, lack of aid and food price inflation, is unlikely until December or January 2012, the UN warned.

“We still do not have all the resources for food, clean water, shelter and health services to save the lives of hundreds of thousands of Somalis in desperate need,” Mark Bowden, the UN Humanitarian Coordinator for Somalia, said.  Immediate action was required to avoid famine spreading to all eight regions of southern Somalia. “Every day of delay is literally a matter of life or death for children and their families in the famine-affected areas,” Bowden told a news conference in Nairobi on 20 July.  “This is a time for exceptional actions” in terms of the speed at which aid is delivered, and the conditions under which donors should be willing to give, he added.

With malnutrition rates topping 50 percent in some districts, the UN announced that famine had hit Lower Shabelle and southern Bakool regions. A recent assessment, Bowden said, highlighted “the shocking severity of the crisis”, confirming that the rest of Somalia was “close to famine conditions”.  According to the Integrated Phase Classification’s five-point scale, a famine is declared when at least 20 percent of households face extreme food shortages with limited ability to cope, the prevalence of global acute malnutrition exceeds 30 percent and crude death rates exceed two deaths per 10,000 people per day.

But naming a food crisis a famine does not legally require action in the way that announcing a genocide would, despite the politicization of the term and the gravity of the label.  “Morally speaking, famine is a term that must elicit moral indignation,” said Bruno Geddo, a representative of the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR). “Emotionally, it should push people to do more.”  World Food Programme (WFP) executive director, Josette Sheeran, said: “WFP saw this emergency coming… It is now vital that the coalition of international action – involving United Nations agencies, governments, non-governmental organizations and regional organizations – quickly receive generous support and donations required to make a difference.”

Recently, Al Shabab militia, which control parts of Somalia, requested international food assistance. The inability of agencies to work in the region since early 2010 had prevented aid from reaching the very hungry, especially children, contributing to the crisis.

 Mounting death toll

“Some 11,000 people have died due to drought in the past 45 days, 9,000 of them in the Bay, Bakool and Lower Shabelle regions, the rest in other regions in south-central Somalia,” Abdikadir Hirsi Shekhdon, a member of the government drought committee, said in Mogadishu.  “The government and the public are helping the vulnerable people,” he added. “For example, the president has distributed 1,000 tents, 1,000 blankets and 1,000 mats to some of the displaced in Mogadishu.”  But with nearly half of the Somali population – 3.7 million people – in crisis, of whom an estimated 2.8 million people are in the south, the scale of the crisis is huge.

“Today the world’s attention is on my country but I ask the world to address the fundamental causes of this humanitarian catastrophe and urgently ask for the resources needed to rebuild the Somali state in the midst of an ongoing conflict,” Somali Prime Minister Abdiweli Mohamed Ali said. “This is going to get worse for the Somali people, before it gets better.”  The crisis has forced thousands of Somalis to seek refuge in the capital, Mogadishu.

“After two years of consecutive drought and the death of all our livestock, I decided to head for Mogadishu in the hope of saving my children,” Farhiya Osman Ahmed, 28, said. “Upon reaching the city, my children fell ill,” she told IRIN. “I don’t know what disease they were suffering from. Three of them died and the fourth one is still sick; his condition has worsened in the past two weeks.”

Warning signs

The humanitarian community has stepped up its response to the crisis, some by setting up cash-for-work or cash relief activities and distributing food. Action Contre la Faim, for example, is airlifting tons of food into Somalia, and UNHCR has added oral rehydration salts, high protein biscuits and water purification tablets to its emergency kits, items not usually included.

“So far donors have committed less than US$200 million, leaving an $800 million black hole,” Oxfam GB said in reference to humanitarian funding needs for the Horn of Africa before the famine announcement.  Help is still months away, yet warning signs were being reported a year ago by the Famine Early Warning System Network (FEWS NET) and the Food Security and Nutrition Analysis Unit.  According to Chris Hillbruner, a decision and planning support adviser for FEWS NET, this crisis showed that relatively good and accurate information could be provided well in advance but “there’s a lot of room globally for response to connect to early warning in a stronger way.”  Bowden told IRIN that although the early warning information and analysis was exceptional, it had not translated into prevention. “In Somalia, there is a mismatch between warning and response,” he said. “We must listen to our early warning systems and safeguard the impartiality of our humanitarian responses.”

Fran Equiza, Oxfam’s regional director, called for quick global action to avoid a repeat of such crises.  “Emergency aid is vital right now, but we also need to ask why this has happened, and how we can stop it ever happening again,” she said.

“The warning signs have been seen for months, and the world has been slow to act. Much greater long-term investment is needed in food production and basic development to help people cope with poor rains and ensure that this is the last famine in the region.”

Reproduced with the kind permission of IRIN 2011

http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportID=93280

A Somali mother feeds her malnourished 6 month old son in Dadaab

By Katy Migiro

Source: Reuters, 20 July 2011

WAJIR, Kenya (TrustLaw) – At the age of 29, Salatha Ahmed is expecting her eighth child.  But it is not her unborn baby that has brought her to a hospital in Wajir, in Kenya’s arid north, it’s her dangerously malnourished 18-month-daughter, Nurta Farah.

Suffering from a protein deficiency, the toddler has been in the paediatric ward’s stabilisation centre for almost three weeks.  Her body was painfully swollen, her breathing laboured and her skin grey and flaky.

“There’s no plan for this new baby,” Ahmed said, cradling her daughter to her bump. “Nature will take its course.”  A few beds away, Habiba Ibrahim, 28, was silent and stoney-faced when asked how she felt about the child growing in her womb.  Her one-year-old son, Siad Abdikadir, was skeletally thin. Like Ahmed, she already had seven mouths to feed.

Years of drought and rising food prices in east Africa has created a hunger crisis with 10 million people requiring urgent help.  On Wednesday, the United Nations declared famine in two regions of southern Somalia, just across the border. Mark Bowden, humanitarian coordinator for Somalia, said southern Bakool and Lower Shabelle had been hit by the worst famine in the region in 20 years, and that it could spread to all eight regions in the south.

Aid workers and medical staff say the emergency highlights the plight of women like Ahmed and Ibrahim who are struggling to feed their growing families but have little say about how many children they will eventually bear.

 MEN, NOT WOMEN, DECIDE FAMILY SIZE

Ethnically, the people of Wajir are Somali.  The town lies 600 km away from the Kenyan capital Nairobi but just 80 km from Somalia.    “Women are dictated to and that brings problems. It is in the Somali community and culture. It is very bad,” said Mohamed Dahiye, a hospital nurse, himself an ethnic Somali.

“Decision-making lies solely with the husbands. But the people who are shouldering the burden of caring for these children – feeding them, moving them from one health centre to the other, carrying them up and down – are the mothers.”  But it’s not just within the Somali communities that large families are prized.

Across Africa, not only is it prestigious to have a lot of children as it shows off the wealth and fertility of the parents, but with one in eight children dying before their fifth birthday in sub-Saharan Africa, it makes sense to have a big family when the survival of children is not assured.    More importantly, children are considered a form of insurance for old age in poor countries where there is no state welfare system.

 FUNDAMENTAL RIGHT DENIED

Inadequate reproductive health services are also responsible for high birth rates.  In Kenya, almost half of pregnancies are unwanted, according to the government’s demographic and health survey (DHS).  One quarter of women said their pregnancy was ill-timed. Another 20 percent did not want the child at all.

“The Kenyan government has failed to provide women – particularly women in marginalized areas such as Wajir – with meaningful access to reproductive health care services, including contraception, safe abortion services, quality maternal healthcare for pregnant women and life-saving emergency obstetric care,” said Alisha Bjerregaard of the Center for Reproductive Rights.  “As a result, women are denied their fundamental right to decide the number and spacing of their children and are consistently forced to risk their lives during childbirth. Not only are women’s reproductive rights and the right to reproductive healthcare services guaranteed under international human rights law—they are also explicitly enshrined in Kenya’s new constitution,” she told TrustLaw.

There is no comprehensive sex education in schools and contraceptives are often not available or are too expensive for poor women to afford.

Only 46 per cent of married women use contraception, according to the DHS.  Legally, abortion is allowed when the mother’s health is at risk. In reality, access to abortion is highly restricted, particularly in government and missionary hospitals due to the influence of the church.  Maternal deaths are high because the majority of women give birth without skilled medical care, usually at home.  Back in Wajir District Hospital, another malnourished child, Adoy Mohamed, was being cared for by her grandmother.  “Her mother died the day after she was born,” said 50-year-old Salata Kassim.

Reproduced with the kind permission of The Thompson Reuters Foundation 2011

http://www.trust.org/trustlaw/news/famine-in-east-africa-underscores-cost-of-high-birth-rate

UN Photo: Somali children and women refugees await for food and assistance near Dadaab

By Jeremy Laurence

SEOUL, July 22 (Reuters) – The humanitarian crisis unravelling in southern Somalia, which the United Nations says is the worst famine in the area for 20 years, has been compounded by political instability that is nearly impossible to deal with, a top UN official said.

“This is a huge humanitarian crisis compounded by both manmade and natural disasters,” Kanayo Nwanze, director the of International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), told Reuters in an interview in Seoul on Friday.

“The case of Somalia is very sad … to invest in a country where there is political instability is practically impossible.”

Years of anarchic conflict in southern Somalia have exacerbated the emergency, preventing aid agencies from helping communities in the area. Nearly 135,000 Somalis have fled since January, mainly to neighbouring Kenya and Ethiopia, with many small children dying during the journey.

“You’ve seen scenes of dying children, malnourished people walking kilometres south into Kenya and Uganda,” he said, calling the international community to donate food aid, tents and blankets.

“Of course neighbouring countries are also concerned that this migration … that they are also accepting potential problems.”

The United Nations has called an emergency meeting for Monday in Rome to discuss mobilising aid for drought-stricken east Africa.

A wide swathe of east Africa, including Kenya and Ethiopia, has been hit by years of severe drought and the United Nations says 3.7 million people face starvation in southern Somalia.

“The most unfortunate part of this is it is not the first time it has happened … droughts occurred in the 1980s, 90s and now in 2011. That is the sad part of the situation.

“When we do not prepare for natural disasters, they are bound to recur year after year, and then there is something wrong with the system that we have.”

Monday’s meeting in Rome was called at the request of France, current president of the Group of 20 leading economies. It will bring together the three main Rome-based aid agencies IFAD, the World Food Programme and Food and Agriculture Organisation. (Reporting by Jeremy Laurence; Editing by Alex Richardson)

Reproduced with the kind permission of Thompson’s Reuters Foundation 2011

http://www.trust.org/alertnet/news/interview-somalia-emergency-exacerbated-by-instability-un-official/