Following media claims that Al-Shabaab, the Al-Qaeda linked terrorist group, lifted its ban on aid agencies, the group’s spokesperson denied the reports.
Al-Shabab spokesperson, Ali Mohamud Rage, said on Thursday, ‘the agencies we banned are still banned. The agencies were involved in political activities.’
The two regions of Somalia, Bakool and Lower Shabelle, where a famine has been declared, are controlled by the Eritrean-backed terrorist group.
The spokesperson rebuffed reports of famine as ‘utter nonsense, 100% baseless and sheer propaganda.’ He claimed ‘There is drought in Somalia and shortage of rain but it is not as bad as they put it.’
Earlier this month, however, the spokesperson indicated that the group wants to open talks with aid groups to facilitate their return.
Organizations, like the U.N.’s World Food Program and Mercy Corps, are banned by Al-Shabaab, while UNICEF and Save The Children, could operate.
BBC Somali editor Yusuf Garaad Omar analyzed the distinction saying: ‘food aid – as supplied by WFP – is sensitive for al-Shabab as it would like to ensure it goes to regions it controls, rather than government areas….a lot of money can be made from transporting food. Helping women and children – the work Unicef does – is less of an issue’.
UNICEF was able to make the first airlift of food and medicine to malnourished children in the Al-Shabaab controlled town of Baidoa. UNICEF said its workers had been given unhindered access, and hoped this would encourage other agencies. On the other hand, WFP (World Food Programme) said it is planning to airlift food into the capital. Its spokesperson Emilia Casella said ‘Al-Shabab is not a monolithic organization. It’s important to note that we’re working where we can; we’re making plans to work where it’s feasible‘.
UNICEF’s spokesperson Shantha Bloeman said it was increasingly relying on its local partners but had been able to continue its operations.‘At the moment what we are trying to do is to look at how we can scale up our programmes and get more supplementary and therapeutic food into these area where we have the extreme starvation going on…..Yes, WFP had serious restrictions on it but as far as our operations are concerned we have been operating throughout.’
Aid agencies have been unable to work in most of southern Somalia since the beginning of 2010, and this has contributed significantly to the crisis. Al-Shabaab was linked to a string of attacks on foreign aid workers and journalists, and the World Food Program, which has lost a total of 14 workers since 2008, pulled out of Al-Shabaab controlled areas following further demands for cash payments for safe passage for aid.
There is disagreement on the matter amongst Al-Shabaab leaders,according to the July 22 issue of the A Week in the Horn, Ethiopia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs weekly press release. The press release explained the situation as follows:
Meanwhile the drought and famine is having a considerable political impact within the senior ranks of Al-Shabaab with not everybody prepared to support lifting of the ban on operations of international aid agencies. Al-Shabaab’s chief commander, Abu-Zubeyr “Godane” opposed the move, apparently worried that NGOs might provide intelligence for air strikes by US and France helicopters and drones. This view is apparently shared by a number of the leaders of the foreign fighters, the so-called “ Al-Qaeda operatives”. Others, including Sheikh Muktar Robow “Abu-Mansoor”, Al-Shabaab’s second in command, whose clan members are most affected by the drought, Sheikh Ali Dhere, Al-Shabaab spokesperson and Fuad Shongole, head of Al-Shabaab’s community mobilization and religious affairs department, strongly pushed for allowing international aid agencies to operate. They argued that this will help Al-Shabaab regain lost trust and confidence in the drought-stricken communities in the South Central areas under its control. They have been encouraged in this by support from clan elders.
Shortly after Al-Shabaab announced that it would allow aid agencies to operate in areas under its control elders in Bay and Bakool regions, two of the worst drought affected areas Sheikh Muktar Robow to pull the Rahenweyn fighters out of Mogadishu since Abu-Zubeyr “Godane” was opposing any re-engagement with aid agencies. The elders accused “Godane” of betraying the local communities of Bay and Bakool regions by denying them aid despite their full support for Al-Shabaab. The elders claimed “Godane” did not have the interest of the people at heart even though these were the people most affected by the drought. A local elder in Baidoa, who identified himself as Hasab Aliyow was quoted as saying they would do anything to resist any condition that Al-Shabaab might try to impose on aid organizations. “Those organizations operate in all other regions of Somalia. It is not only us that have been affected by the drought. Other communities are getting assistance in their areas,” said Aliyow.
Sheikh Muktar listened to the elders from his clan. Witnesses reported seeing Rahenweyn fighters (Robow’s clan) moving out of Mogadishu on Tuesday and Wednesday last week, and returning to Bay region, a stronghold of Al-Shabaab. It is a region mainly inhabited by the Rahenweyn and other affiliated minorities. It is from these areas from which the majority of people have been moving into the severely overcrowded Kenyan refugee camps or those at Dolo in Ethiopia. Most of the people fleeing the drought come either from the Rahenweyn or other minority Somali clans in the south-west where Al-Shabaab has been able to gain significant support. Most of the refugees now reaching the Dadaab camps have been coming from Sakow, Ufurow, Afmadow or Bardera, and their dialects clearly show to which clans they belong.
“Godane” reluctantly went along with the decision to allow aid into Baidoa in the face of the pressure and insistence coming from Muktar Robow and his allies and from the Rahenweyn, but insisted that this “painful decision” of allowing international aid agencies to carry out aid distribution should only be carried out strictly under monitored and regulated procedures. A week after Al-Shabaab lifted its ban, a UNICEF plane landed at Baidoa Airport. Shortly before its arrival, “Godane” forces took control of the process away from the UNICEF coordinators on the ground, organizing the off-loading of the food and medicine from the aircraft and placing it all in storehouses in Baidoa under their control. Sheikh Muktar, angered that the supplies were not immediately being distributed, mobilized his forces to seize them. A violent confrontation was only avoided by the intervention of the commander of the foreign fighters, Abu-Mansoor Al-Ameriki, who forced “Godane” and Sheikh Muktar to meet. After two days of discussion failed to resolve the impasse, they were told to wait for a decision from Al-Qaeda, and until that came Sheikh Muktar was to pull his forces to the west of the town and “Godane” take his to the east.
Aid organizations have been making use of the disagreement between Al-Shabaab leaders to mobilize local elders and members of the Diaspora community to put pressure on Al-Shabaab to allow access to drought victims. A number of aid agencies have negotiated agreements with clan elders in various parts of Bay, Bakool and Juba regions to take relief supplies into areas under the control of clans affiliated to Al-Shabaab leaders. There have, however, been other incidents underlining the fact that not everyone in Al-Shabaab is prepared to support the operation of aid agencies. Last Friday, Al-Shabaab fighters burnt a vehicle carrying aid medicine for drought affected people in Gedo region. The same day another car loaded with aid drugs has seized as it was heading towards Garbaharey, a town controlled by pro-government forces. Yesterday, an Al-Shabaab spokesman, Sheikh Ali Mohamoud Rage, claimed the UN declaration of famine was “100% false and propaganda”. He agreed there was drought but denied this had led to widespread hunger. Sheikh Ali said Al-Shabaab would not allow certain banned organizations to return and would continue to block previously banned organizations.
However, A Week in the Horn suggested Aid organizations relocate from Kenya to peaceful areas within Somalia. It said:
….there is now relative peace and stability in many areas of Somalia. This means there is a much improved opportunity for international relief agencies to carry out operations in large areas of the country, irrespective of the attitudes of Al-Shabaab. Equally, with Al-Shabaab in retreat in many areas, the relocation of Nairobi-based organizations to Somalia has become quite possible. IGAD has been calling on the UN and other agencies for some time to relocate to parts of Somalia that have seen an improvement in security. This would have several advantages. The relief this would bring to the drought sufferers is obvious. It would also go a long way to take off some of the pressure on neighboring countries. Another advantage is that it would send a message that it is after all possible for Somalia to have a semblance of stable administration if the international community would harmonize its efforts to support Somalis and a Somali government. The relocation of these agencies would go a long way to boost the morale of those who are fighting extremism in Somalia as well as deny extremists the space that has enabled them to recruit thousands of desperate youths. The relocation of UN and other agencies from Nairobi to Somalia is long overdue.
On the other hand, Somalia’s Transitional Federal Government’s drought committee officials said 11,000 people have died in the last six weeks, most of them in the Bay, Bakool and Lower Shebelle regions, while some 10,000 families had moved from these regions to Mogadishu. The government claimed ‘it was doing its best but the problem is beyond capacity’.
UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) confirmed that tens of thousands have already died in Somalia in recent months.
Comments from Western officials and agencies:
US State Department Assistant Secretary for Africa, Johnnie Carson:
the presence of the anti-Western terrorist organization Al-Shabaab in south central Somalia. Al-Shabaab’s activities have clearly made the current situation much worse. In January 2010, Al-Shabaab prohibited international humanitarian workers and organizations from operating in their areas of control. And its continued refusal to grant humanitarian access has prevented the international community from responding to and mitigating some of the cumulative and most disastrous consequences of the drought in south central Somalia.
We have seen the recent reports that Al-Shabaab claims that it will finally allow international humanitarian aid into areas under its control. We are consulting with international organizations that have worked in these areas to verify if there has been any real change in Al-Shabaab’s policies that would allow us and others to operate freely and without taxation imposed for humanitarian deliveries. Al-Shabaab’s current policies are wreaking havoc and are not helping Somalis living in the south central part of that country.
Responding to a question from a journalist on whether U.S. sanctions on Al-Shabaab are complicating relief efforts, Mr. Carson said:
U.S. sanctions are not the issue or the problem. The issue and the problem is Al-Shabaab. International organizations such as CARE, Save the Children, UNICEF, the WFP, don’t have sanctions. But it is those organizations that have been equally denied an opportunity to operate in south central Somalia. We call on all of those in south central Somalia who have it within their authority to allow refugee groups and organizations to operate there to do so. But the issue is Al-Shabaab. It’s not sanctions. Organizations do not – such as the ones I just mentioned – don’t have sanctions, but they’ve also been barred.
USAID’s Ass. Administrator, Nancy Lindbor, said:
We know that there’s a severe and unabated humanitarian crisis in southern Somalia, and aid workers are unable to reach reliably 61 percent of people in need due to the risk, the insecurity, and the inaccessibility through the presence of armed groups, like Al-Shabaab. As you know, since January 2010, the United Nations World Food Program has unable – has been unable to operate in southern Somalia because of the extremely dangerous conditions. This is true for other international and nongovernmental organizations as well. It’s no coincidence that the Somalis who have the greatest need are living in the areas that are the most insecure.
United Kingdom’s Overseas Aid Minister, Andrew Mitchell, said that the UK “will not allow operations to be fettered by [Al-Shabaab]; we must be able to see that [our aid] can actually reach, with lifesaving provision, those for whom it is intended, and then we will be giving additional support inside Somalia…".
Medecins Sans Frontieres Australia’, executive director Paul McPhun said:
Two weeks on we’re still in a process of trying to negotiate how to put that into practice and currently we do not have any guarantees or conditions or real opportunity to be able to scale up our ability to put aid on the ground.
There are many conflicts around the world and humanitarian access is secured, not perfectly but assistance can get to populations and this is one context where massive numbers of a population are still largely excluded so there has to be, we have to confront that, it has to be confronted by key stakeholders. They have to put the interests of the population first.
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Compiled from:
A Week in the Horn – July_22_2011
State Department – Briefing on the Current Situation in the Horn of Africa
BBC News – Somali Islamists maintain aid ban and deny famine;
The World Today – Crisis talks on Horn of Africa drought;
Somali militants vow to block aid workers – seattlepi.com;
Islamist group denies lifting aid ban in Somalia – ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)
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Check the Hunger Archive for related posts. Read the forecast and maps on Somalia’s Famine – here.
OK….looks like I won’t make it to Addis while you are there (I was trying to move forward my schedules but didn’t succeed until today)
So, either call me(my phone number is on my profile page) oe mail me your phone number.
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