advertisements
GENEVA (Reuters) - About 1,000 people are fleeing Somalia's capital Mogadishu every day and political instability is making it increasingly hard to deliver aid, a United Nations official said on Friday.
Eric Laroche, the U.N. humanitarian coordinator for Somalia, said 50 percent more people in the Horn of Africa country -- 1.5 million -- needed international assistance compared with the start of 2007.
Problems are most acute in Mogadishu where enrolment in schools has fallen 50 percent, Laroche said. Those fleeing the capital often end up in cramped displaced-persons camps where he said malnutrition rates have reached crisis levels.
"The stakes are getting higher and higher," Laroche told a news conference in Geneva.
Laroche said the United Nations would seek about $400 million for its
 |
| In this file photo Eric Laroche (R), U.N. Humanitarian Coordinator for Somalia, reaches to the... |
Islamist-led rebels attack the government and its Ethiopian military allies almost daily. Rampant insecurity has forced many aid agencies to quit Somalia, leaving the United Nations and a few other groups to run limited operations.
Many low-ranking soldiers are undisciplined and show little regard for international law, he said.
Delivering aid supplies can require escorts with private militias and frequent stops at impromptu checkpoints where payments must be given for passage. "It is a very difficult environment to work in," he said.
Food aid deliveries have not yet restarted following the release of a senior World Food Program official on Tuesday, Laroche said. Negotiations are continuing over how the supplies would be distributed.
The transitional government is regarded by many Western governments as the best hope of creating a national authority in Somalia. Thirteen previous attempts have failed since dictator Mohamed Siad Barre's ousting in 1991.
Somalia's population is estimated at around 9 million.
SOURCE: Reuters, October 26, 2007