As a top U.N. aid
official was released by Somalia’s government, so
the United Nations will resume food distribution to tens of thousands of
Somalis in
The U.N. is also trying to learn what Somali officials are accusing Idris Osman of doing,
said John Holmes,
undersecretary-general for humanitarian affairs. Osman, head of World Food
Program operations in
The seizure of Osman Oct. 17 when dozens of armed security agents stormed a
 |
| Idris
Osman who was detained for six days by Somali security officials Photo IRN |
Osman will go to
"If he hasn't left the country already, he's about to," Holmes said. "And then there'll be a discussion with the government about what they had against him, which they never really explained other than vague references to terrorism, and then we'll try and sort it out."
Gen. Mohamed Warsame Darwish, intelligence chief of the transitional federal government, said Tuesday that Osman had been granted bail, but U.N. officials said no bail money was requested from the world body.
Holmes said U.N. officials knew of no reason why the Somalis arrested Osman, but he said everything in the country becomes political, including food aid, to whom it is given and how.
"The politics are very complicated and getting more complicated and difficult," he said. "I suspect he may have gotten caught up in that in some way, not as an individual but what the World Food Program was doing at that particular moment. But we really don't know."
After Osman's arrest the U.N. agency shut down food deliveries to about 76,000 recipients in the Somali capital, citing security problems.
About 1.5 million Somalis need food aid and protection - 50 percent more that at the start of the year _ due to inadequate rains, continuing internal displacement and a potential cholera epidemic, according to the United Nations.