Somalia - WFP Threatens to End Food Distributions

by Michael Bear · 2009-01-25 06:20:00 UTC
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The only surprise is that this didn't happen sooner.  In response to the killing of two World Food Program (WFP) staff in Somalia earlier this year, WFP this past week announced that it might discontinue food distributions unless communities and local leaders ensured the security of WFP staff.

According to WFP Country Representative Peter Goossens:

"We will not stop food distributions yet, but we will distribute all the food we currently have in the country and in the pipeline and that will be it. Until and unless we get assurances from the local leaders and the population that our staff can operate safely, we will not continue."

Goossens said that WFP would distribute 57,000 metric tonnes of food - enough to feed 2.5 million people - over the next two months.

Then, as Goossens said: "That is it basically...Unless we get positive assurances from the population, authorities and whoever is in control of such areas that our staff can safely function, we will have no choice but to stop distributing food in those specific areas."

This news couldn't come at a worse time - half of Somalia's population (3.25 million) is now in need of humanitarian aid, a 77% increase since the start of 2008, while 180,000 childen under the age of five in South and Central Somalia are acutely malnourished.

Some parts of the country are verging on famine.

Somalia is also the most dangerous country in the world for aid workers - 36 of whom were killed in 2008.

[Al Shabab militia in Somalia - Photo from AP]

Michael Bear
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