Tørken og hungeren på Afrikas Horn breder sig dag for dag
MOGADISHU//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.
There were 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,noted he.
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 (fordrevne) to go up to 50 km, 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
Læs videre på http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?reportid=93422
