Somalia:UN monitors say three million need aid in Somalia

NAIROBI (AFP) — More than three million Somalis will need humanitarian help at least until year's end owing to high food prices and prolonged drought and insecurity in the troubled nation, a UN report warned Friday.
"The unfolding humanitarian disaster is widespread and the level of human suffering and deprivation is shocking," the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) warned in a statement.

"The current assessment estimates that 3.25 million people, representing 43 percent of the total population of Somalia, will need humanitarian assistance at least until the end of the year, which is a 77 percent increase since January 2008," according to figures compiled by the Food Security Analysis Unit, part of the FAO.
The dire situation has been exacerbated by relentless conflict, a sharp devaluation of the Somali shilling and hyper-inflation as well as drought.
The monitors said cereal prices had increased by between 340 and 700 percent percent in the last year just as central Somalia endured its worst drought in recent memory.
"One of the main driving factors of the crisis is the escalating civil insecurity, which is not only leading to human suffering in terms of killings, violence, human rights abuses, and population displacement," the statement said.

"The impact of the worsening economic crisis, characterised by currency devaluation, disrupted trade and market activities, and hyperinflation of basic food and nonfood items, is further compounded by the overall poor performance of (April-June) rains, which has resulted in below normal local cereal production and a deepening drought and water crisis in pastoral areas."
Somalia has been without an effective central authority since the 1991 ouster of former president Mohamed Siad Bare set off a deadly power struggle that has defied more than a dozen peace initiatives.

Source: AFP, Sept 13, 2008