SOMALIA: "Increased hostility towards aid workers"

SOMALIA: "Increased hostility towards aid workers"

NAIROBI, 18 August 2009 (IRIN) - The weekend attack on a UN World Food
Programme (WFP) compound in central Somalia was the fourth "deliberately
targeted" incident in two months, according to the agency.

The 16 August attack in Wajid came less than a month after militants raided
two UN compounds in Baidoa and Wajid, stealing equipment and vehicles and
forcing the closure of some operations.

"This direct, deliberate and sustained attack on aid organizations and aid
workers is intolerable," acting UN Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator
Graham Farmer said.

Last week, the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) issued a warning of increased
suffering for malnourished Somali children if humanitarian supplies continue
to be destroyed or looted.

"We are worried about the recent destruction and looting of humanitarian
aid supplies in certain areas of central and south Somalia," Bastien
Vigneau, UNICEF's chief of emergency in Somalia, told IRIN. "If the
situation does not improve, we are looking at dramatic consequences for
affected acute malnourished children in the next four to six weeks."

The disruption in delivery of aid would put at high risk at least 1.2
million children under-five and 1.4 million women in central-south Somalia.

On 13 August, UNICEF postponed the distribution of hundreds of tonnes of
nutritional supplies for more than 85,000 children in central-southern
Somalia because of what it termed "increased hostility towards aid
organizations".

South-central Somalia has a nutritional demand "above emergency
thresholds", Vigneau said. UNICEF and implementing partners were trying to
reach at least 150,000 children countrywide suffering from acute
malnutrition.

The violence has also disrupted the distribution of anti-malaria bed nets
to more than 100,000 women and children.

"[The postponement of aid delivery] will have an adverse impact, especially
in the Middle Shabelle region, where we were involved in campaigns against
malaria, diarrhoea and other diseases," a local contractor in central-south
Somalia for UNICEF, who requested anonymity, told IRIN.

Supplies looted

UNICEF said it was seeking concrete assurances from local authorities that
it would be safe to continue delivering and storing supplies in-country.

"We hope these assurances will be forthcoming very soon so that we can
continue our operations at a level that matches the needs of children and
women and prevent the deaths that will otherwise certainly occur," Rozanne
Chorlton, UNICEF's Representative to Somalia, said in a 13 August statement.

On 17 May, armed men took over UNICEF's compound in the central Somalia
town of Jowhar, destroying or looting large volumes of humanitarian supplies
and communications equipment. Emergency supplies stored in a partner's
warehouse in Jamaame, Lower Juba region, were reportedly taken in early
August.

On 20 July, members of the Islamist Al-Shabab militia group, which is
fighting the Somali government and controls parts of the central and
southern regions, looted equipment and vehicles from the UN compound in
Baidoa.

They also raided the UN office in Wajid, 340km northwest of Mogadishu, and
later broadcast a message on a local Somali radio station calling for the
closure of several UN offices in the country.

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