Somali militants holding up food aid
Source: Agencies |
March 2, 2010, Tuesday
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MILITANTS in Somalia are preventing food from reaching more than 366,000 people who need it, a World Food Program spokesman said yesterday, following a statement by Islamists that aid agencies were helping "apostates" in the war-ravaged Horn of Africa nation.
Trucks carrying food aid have not been allowed to pass through a checkpoint in the Afgooye corridor near the capital of Mogadishu for the past two weeks, WFP spokesman Peter Smerdon said.
Afgooye has the largest concentration of displaced people in the country. It is nominally controlled by the insurgent group Hizbul Islam but allied Islamist group al-Shabab also operates roadblocks there.
On Sunday, al-Shabab prohibited WFP from distributing food in areas under its control because it says the food undercuts farmers selling recently harvested crops.
"Somali farmers are having a hard time selling their produce because WFP distributes food aid across the regions and that is demoralizing," an al-Shabab statement said. "The organization has been completely banned."
It also accused the agency of handing out food unfit for human consumption and of secretly supporting "apostates," or those who have renounced Islam.
WFP had already pulled out of al-Shabab-controlled areas in southern and central Somalia in January following al-Shabab demands that included the firing of female aid workers, payments for protection and buying food to be distributed from local merchants.
WFP says it did not expect the suspension to have a devastating impact immediately because harvests are imminent, but hunger is expected to increase after March unless operations are resumed.
Trucks carrying food aid have not been allowed to pass through a checkpoint in the Afgooye corridor near the capital of Mogadishu for the past two weeks, WFP spokesman Peter Smerdon said.
Afgooye has the largest concentration of displaced people in the country. It is nominally controlled by the insurgent group Hizbul Islam but allied Islamist group al-Shabab also operates roadblocks there.
On Sunday, al-Shabab prohibited WFP from distributing food in areas under its control because it says the food undercuts farmers selling recently harvested crops.
"Somali farmers are having a hard time selling their produce because WFP distributes food aid across the regions and that is demoralizing," an al-Shabab statement said. "The organization has been completely banned."
It also accused the agency of handing out food unfit for human consumption and of secretly supporting "apostates," or those who have renounced Islam.
WFP had already pulled out of al-Shabab-controlled areas in southern and central Somalia in January following al-Shabab demands that included the firing of female aid workers, payments for protection and buying food to be distributed from local merchants.
WFP says it did not expect the suspension to have a devastating impact immediately because harvests are imminent, but hunger is expected to increase after March unless operations are resumed.
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