U.N. blames U.S. for aid cuts to Somalia
International Desk
November 08, 2009
Starvation looms with supply line "effectively broken." U.S. fears that its shipments may be diverted to terrorists.
U.N. officials said Friday that the supply of critical food aid to Somalia had been interrupted and that rations to starving people needed to be cut, partly because the U.S. government has delayed food contributions out of fears they would be diverted to terrorists.
Last month, U.S. officials said they had suspended millions of dollars of food aid because of concerns that Somali contractors working for the United Nations were funneling food and money to the Shabab, an Islamist insurgent group with growing ties to Al-Qaida. U.S. officials played down the effect of the delays and said the food shipments would resume soon, once the U.S. government was assured the United Nations was doing more to police the aid deliveries.
But on Friday, the World Food Program said, "The food supply line to Somalia is effectively broken."
U.N. officials said around 40 million pounds of American-donated food was being held up in warehouses in Mombasa, in neighboring Kenya, because U.S. officials were not allowing aid workers to distribute it until a new set of tighter regulations was ironed out. U.N. officials said the U.S. government was insisting on guarantees that were unrealistic in Somalia, such as demanding that aid transporters not pay fees at roadblocks, which are ubiquitous and virtually unavoidable in a nation widely considered a case study in chaos.
U.S. aid officials declined to comment Friday.
In the drought-stricken regions of central Somalia, where entire communities are on the brink of famine, elders said many children who had been surviving off of the U.S. donations were now dying from hunger. "We are totally dependent on this food, and people are now suffering," said Ahmed Mahamoud Hassan, chairman of the drought committee in Galkaio, central Somalia. "We have nothing else to eat."
Somalia is one of the neediest nations in the world -- and one of the most complex environments to deliver aid. Ever since the central government imploded in 1991, this parched country has lurched from one crisis to the next, the latest being a vicious civil war between a weak government and an extremist Islamist insurgency during one of the worst droughts in years.
U.N. officials said Friday that the supply of critical food aid to Somalia had been interrupted and that rations to starving people needed to be cut, partly because the U.S. government has delayed food contributions out of fears they would be diverted to terrorists.
Last month, U.S. officials said they had suspended millions of dollars of food aid because of concerns that Somali contractors working for the United Nations were funneling food and money to the Shabab, an Islamist insurgent group with growing ties to Al-Qaida. U.S. officials played down the effect of the delays and said the food shipments would resume soon, once the U.S. government was assured the United Nations was doing more to police the aid deliveries.
But on Friday, the World Food Program said, "The food supply line to Somalia is effectively broken."
U.N. officials said around 40 million pounds of American-donated food was being held up in warehouses in Mombasa, in neighboring Kenya, because U.S. officials were not allowing aid workers to distribute it until a new set of tighter regulations was ironed out. U.N. officials said the U.S. government was insisting on guarantees that were unrealistic in Somalia, such as demanding that aid transporters not pay fees at roadblocks, which are ubiquitous and virtually unavoidable in a nation widely considered a case study in chaos.
U.S. aid officials declined to comment Friday.
In the drought-stricken regions of central Somalia, where entire communities are on the brink of famine, elders said many children who had been surviving off of the U.S. donations were now dying from hunger. "We are totally dependent on this food, and people are now suffering," said Ahmed Mahamoud Hassan, chairman of the drought committee in Galkaio, central Somalia. "We have nothing else to eat."
Somalia is one of the neediest nations in the world -- and one of the most complex environments to deliver aid. Ever since the central government imploded in 1991, this parched country has lurched from one crisis to the next, the latest being a vicious civil war between a weak government and an extremist Islamist insurgency during one of the worst droughts in years.
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