A severe humanitarian crisis may erupt this year in Somalia, where insecurity could compound crop failures and leave about 3,6-million people in need of urgent aid, a United Nations agency said on Wednesday.
Still battling to recover from the effects of a killer drought that hit East Africa, about 1,8-million Somalis remain dependent on assistance, and that number could double if fears of widespread conflict are realized, it said.
The UN’s Food Security Analysis Unit (FSAU) noted slight improvements in conditions in certain areas of Somalia but said crisis conditions prevail particularly in the south and will persist until at least the end of the year.
”An estimated 1,8-million people are in need of urgent humanitarian assistance and livelihood support at least until the end of December 2006,” the FSAU said in a statement released in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi.
It blamed drought-related crop failures and livestock deaths as the main causes but said supplies of aid and imported food stuffs are compromised by violence and could be reduced to a trickle by large-scale fighting.
Somalia, a nation of 10-million, is currently rocked by a stand-off between Islamists, who control much of the south including the capital, and a weak government that is rocked by infighting and unable to exert its authority.
”If there is an escalation in the political crisis which results in widespread conflict and the disruption of inter-regional trade, the implications for the humanitarian situation will be severe,” the FSAU said.
”In such a scenario, the total number of people facing humanitarian crisis could double,” it said, adding that all of south and central Somalia might be plunged into an ”emergency of a significantly increased scale and magnitude”. — Sapa-AFP