From: Yemane Natnael (yemane_natnael@yahoo.com)
Date: Sat Jul 19 2008 - 16:01:26 EDT
Surge in violence pushes Ethiopia, Somalia to crisis point
Peter Goodspeed, National Post Published: Friday, July 18, 2008
Killings, kidnappings and the threat of famine are turning the Horn of Africa into the most dangerous and deadly spot on earth.
Already
plagued by drought, food shortages and massive malnutrition, Ethiopia
and Somalia are now facing a potentially catastrophic humanitarian
crisis, say international aid workers.
"Some people are equating
it to 1991 and 1992," when hundreds of thousands died of starvation,
said Marilyn McHarg, director of Medecins Sans Frontieres Canada.
"As
far as the violence is concerned, we see that it is really
deteriorating. The bottom line is anarchy, which impacts on the
population."
So far, 19 foreign aid workers have been killed in
Somalia this year. In January, three MSF staffers died in a roadside
car bombing in the southern town of Kismayo, while a fourth was killed
in an ambush near Mogadishu in March.
This week, a World Food Program contractor was gunned down in Mogadishu, the fifth WFP employee to die in the country this year.
Lately
the killings have become more dramatic and targeted. On July 6, gunmen
assassinated Osman Ali Ahmed, head of the UN Development Program in
Mogadishu, as he left a mosque.
Last Friday, men armed with
pistols killed the deputy head of a German charity, Bread for the
World, in Mogadishu, while the head of a Somali aid organization was
gunned down the same day as he distributed food to refugees just south
of the seaside capital. The surge in violence has been accompanied by a
dramatic increase in abductions and kidnappings that has seen 13
foreign aid staffers, including two Italians, a Kenyan and a Briton,
being held for ransom.
Threatening leaflets have appeared warning local employees of international aid organizations to quit their jobs.
"The
attacks on aid workers, the number of people being killed, the number
of abductions, ambushes and car lootings are all going up," said Ms.
McHarg. "What is happening is our humanitarian space is just shrinking
to a point that we are finding it really difficult to maintain our
presence."
Suspicion for the killings and kidnappings usually
falls on Islamist rebels, some linked to al-Qaeda, who have vowed to
wage an Iraq-style insurgency against Somalia's internationally backed
transitional government and its Ethiopian allies.
MSF is
maintaining a dozen projects in central and southern Somalia, but
limits the amount of time expatriate aid workers spend in the country
for security reasons.
After the assassination of the UNDP
director, the UN withdrew all staff from Baidoa, the seat of Somalia's
transitional government. UN workers are limited to same-day visits to
Somalia and are forbidden to stay overnight.
"It is intolerable
and incomprehensible that humanitarian workers striving to save lives
and alleviate human suffering in one of the most difficult environments
in the world are being targeted and killed," said Mark Bowden, the UN's
humanitarian co-ordinator for Somalia.
While Somalia's torment
has its roots in decades of lawlessness -- it has not had a fully
functioning government since 1991 -- neighbouring Ethiopia is now
caught in the vise grip of a prolonged drought.
In the past two months, MSF has treated 9,500 severely malnourished children in the region.
"It's
just the tip of the iceberg," Ms. McHarg said. "As many as 10% of our
admissions are people over 14 years of age. Normally in malnutrition
outbreaks, you will see children under five, because they are the most
vulnerable. When you start seeing children who are older, you know you
are having a situation that is more compromised."
pgoodspeed@nationalpost.com
http://www.nationalpost.com/news/world/story.html?id=664064
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