Somalia bans food aid, citing secularism worse than famine

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Zimmetro — Charity groups roam the streets asking for donations, and concerned citizens around the world donated nearly US$2 billion to help ease the famine in East Africa, but…
Last week, aid workers in Somalia were cautiously celebrating news that half of the areas previously classified as most at risk had improved and were no longer “in famine.”
However, now there were several warnings that those hard-won gains were under threat from the decision by Somalia’s Islamist insurgency, who control nearly half of the country including the capital, to ban most Western aid agencies from its territory. The developments have aid workers warning that famine may return to the places.

Al Shabab, a radical Islamist group in Somalia, said this week that 16 organizations, including most UN bodies, must leave because they were “fostering secularism” and were “amplifying the refugee crisis.”
The banned agencies included UNICEF, the World Health Organization, the UN refugee agency UNHCR, Norwegian Church Aid, the Danish Refugee Council Concern, and others humanitarian agencies from Sweden, Italy, Germany, and France, who were all working to distribute food to the famine-affected areas.
Al Shabab accused the organizations of spreading secularism, “they were “financing, aiding, and abetting subversive groups seeking to destroy the basic tenets of Islamic penal system” and “undermining the livelihoods and cultural values of the population,” a statement from Al-Shabab said.
UN aid offices in Somalia distributing food to famine-affected areas must now close because they are ‘spreading secularism’.
It even claimed that the agencies were making Somalia’s refugee situation worse by “failing to implement durable solutions.” The group then proceed to immediately shut down aid operations in Baidoa and Wajid, two large towns in the country’s center. The length of the ban was not made clear.
Valerie Amos, the UN’s humanitarian affairs coordinator, denied Shabab’s claims. “Humanitarian organizations working in Somalia remain strictly neutral, and their only task is to save lives,” she said.
“Any disruption to ongoing humanitarian efforts threatens to undermine the fragile progress made this year, and could bring back famine conditions in several areas.” The UN’s humanitarian coordination office later said that the decision made by Al-Shabab meant that almost a quarter of the people who received food hand-outs might miss them in December.

More than 250,000 people are still at risk of imminent starvation, the UN said last week, down from 750,000 at the peak of the famine. However, millions more still face sustained food shortages. “The situation remains critical,” Amos added. “The progress is fragile and needs to be sustained.”
Al-Shabab has long restricted the work of international aid groups but now banned the 16 groups outright. The group’s militants stormed aid offices in the towns of Baidoa and Beledweyne, and closed down several medical offices in Afgoye town, citing they are ‘un-Islamic’ and accused the agencies of trying to convert vulnerable Muslim children.
Areas controlled by Al-Shabab suffer worst famine
“Three armoured vehicles with gunmen surrounded the offices, including the office of [UN children's agency] Unicef,” Baidoa resident Adulahi Idle told the AFP news agency.
“I saw many militiamen go inside the places and force the people there to leave and the men took control.” he added.
Unicef spokesman Jaya Murthy said Unicef was involved only in humanitarian work and not political or religion, that al-Shabab’s decision would threaten the lives of children. “They just said they [Unicef staff] should go home immediately and our office is now their office,” Mr Murthy told the BBC’s Focus on Africa programme.
UN’s dilemma: 29,000 children have died from famine in Somalia – to save or not to save them?
“About 160,000 severely malnourished children are at imminent risk of death if assistance does not continue,” he said.
The UN says the areas worst effected by famine are in the southern and central areas, which are under the control of the Al Shabab group. Earlier this month, the UN said that critical famine conditions no longer existed in three of the areas previously worst affected – Bay, Bakool, and Lower Shabelle – but this may be reversed with Al-Shabab’s decision now.
Somalia has not had a functioning central government for more than 20 years and has been wracked by fighting between various militias.

The Danish Refugee Council said militants took over its offices in Belet Weyne and Bulo Burte in Hiraan region. The group called al-Shabab’s decision “a sad development” as Somalis are “in dire need of humanitarian aid due to drought and years of armed conflict.” The group provides shelter, aid packages and daily meals for tens of thousands of internally displaced people in the capital, Mogadishu.
“The struggling people of Somalia need all the help they can get, therefore we hope and trust that we and the other organizations involved are soon again able to resume our humanitarian operations,” said Ann Mary Olsen, the head of the council’s international department.
Somalis expressed sadness and anger at al-Shabab’s decision, “Without their help, our children will return to starvation and malnutrition,” said Ahmed Awnor, a community leader in Hiraan in west-central Somalia.
“It’s a disgusting decision. It will force us back to famine and misery again,” said Ahmed Khalif, a Somali elder in Baidoa town. “The difficult tasks the aid agencies have done to fight the famine are only half-done.”