Vindy.com
Saturday, September 05, 2009
Earlier this year, the world was witness to just how explosive the situation is in Somalia during the pirate standoff with the U.S. Navy. The country has been ravaged by violence and anarchy for almost two decades and more than half the population of 3.8 million people needs humanitarian aid.
Somalis have been pouring into Kenya by the hundreds of thousands, thus creating a crisis in the refugee camps and raising concerns among Kenyans about the long-term effects of such a large number of people from another country.
One camp in particular, Dadaab, has one of the world’s largest concentrations of refugees. The population of almost 250,000 is three times its intended size. According to Oxfam, the international aid agency, up to 100,000 more people are likely to arrive by the end of this year as Somalis continue to flee the violence and seek refuge in Kenya.
“Conditions in Dadaab are dire and need immediate attention,” said Philippa Crosland-Taylor, head of Oxfam in Kenya. “Half of the people in the camp do not have access to enough water. Women and children — who make up over half Dadaab’s population — very rarely have access to adequate latrines.”
Bleak assessment
The agency this week issued an assessment of the Somali refugee situation that described the camps as “barely fit for humans.” In addition to a lack of sanitation and little access to clean water, medicine is also in very short supply.
The industrialized nations may not consider what is going on in East Africa a priority, given the global economic crisis and the competition for energy and markets from emerging economies led by China and India. But the danger of ignoring this humanitarian crisis is clear: Terrorist organizations always on the look out for recruits could easily win over the hearts and minds of the Somalis by offering to help.
Last April, an Associated Press story carried the following headline: “Horn of Africa is likely next war front.”
Here’s what it said, in part: “The pirate standoff with the U.S. Navy has burned Somalia into the West’s consciousness as a base for lawlessness and terror, but the hostage crisis illuminates a potentially dangerous picture confronting a far greater area.
“Much of the Horn of Africa, which is made up of six countries covering roughly half the area of the United States, is beset by a rare set of disadvantages that make it ripe for chaos. Poverty, hunger, corruption and lawlessness have made the region a haven not only for pirates, but for arms smugglers and Islamic insurgents.”
The United States, which is leading the war on global terrorism, gives short shrift to the crisis in the refugee camps at great risk.
As the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorists attacks on America’s mainland showed, terrorism can easily be exported. Terrorists trained in camps in countries governed by Islamic extremists can easily be sent around the world.
Innocent people in dire straits rarely make the distinction between the good guy and the bad guys when a helping hand is offered.
The good guys must step up and help ease the suffering of the hundreds of thousands of Somalis.