AngolaPress
Saturday, February 25, 2012
Somalia might still be described as the
"world's worst failed state", but international enthusiasm for
involvement there is ticking up to levels not seen since the 1994
withdrawal of international peacekeepers.Following the
October 1993 "Blackhawk Down" debacle in which 18 US servicemen and well
over a thousand Somalis died in a botched Mogadishu battle, world
powers have largely left Somalia to anarchy, chaos and conflict. Some
estimates suggest more than a million people may have died since
Somalia's last government collapsed in 1991.
But
Thursday's London conference on Somalia -- which brought together
representatives of more than 40 countries including U.S. Secretary of
State Hillary Clinton and UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon -- appeared
to be the latest sign that approach might be beginning to shift.
Officials
say growing worries over Somalia becoming perhaps the leading global
haven for Islamist militancy and the rising cost of Somali piracy --
estimated to cost the global economy some $7 billion a year -- helped
spur action.