Somalia faces a serious food crisis if no nation steps forward with naval ships to escort relief shipments through pirate-infested waters, the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) said on Thursday.
A Dutch frigate now is in its last weeks shepherding two WFP-chartered vessels that shuttle between the Kenyan port of Mombasa to Somalia, where the UN warns 3,5-million will need food relief by year’s end.
”We need a foreign navy to take over the escort system before mid-July when we hope to send a ship from Durban, South Africa, loaded with WFP food to Mogadishu,” WFP spokesperson Peter Smerdon said.
”The WFP has still not received any confirmed offer from any foreign navy, but we have been in contact with many governments and pray that someone will step forward.”
Somalia’s waters are among the most pirate-infested in the world — leading the UN Security Council earlier this month to authorise foreign warships to enter Somali waters to combat piracy and armed robbery at sea.
The WFP’s appeal comes as it seeks to double the amount of food it ships to Somalia with a view to feeding 2,3-million people a month, Smerdon said.
Since November last year, French and Danish frigates have escorted WFP shipments to Somalia, which has been gripped by lawlessness since the 1991 ouster of dictator Mohamed Siad Barre.
Aid groups have scaled down operations in the face of growing insecurity, largely blamed on Islamist militants who have waged a guerrilla war since their ouster by Somali and Ethiopian forces in early 2007.
Smerdon said: ”If humanitarian assistance cannot reach Somalia because of piracy, we fear that we could see scenes similar to the 1992 to 1993 famine in Somalia that cost hundreds of thousands of lives.” — AFP
