Somalia out of famine but still facing food crisis, says UN

Trinidad Times Friday 3rd February, 2012

NAIROBI, Kenya - A good harvest and food aid inflows have improved the situation in Somalia, the United Nations said Friday declaring that the country is out of "famine" situation, while underlining need for more aid with 2.3 million people continuing to face food crisis.

The world body moved the crisis from the top step of a five-point scale based on the death rate to the fourth step, formally reducing it from a "famine" to a "humanitarian emergency."

"....famine conditions are no longer present," said a statement from the office of Mark Bowden, the U.N. Humanitarian Coordinator for Somalia.

"Millions of people still need food, clean water, shelter and other assistance to survive and the situation is expected to deteriorate in May," the statement cited Bowden as saying.

However, with 2.3 million people, representing 31 per cent of the country's population, still facing food crisis, Somalia still need assistances, the UN said.

Despite a good harvest and supplies from aid agencies, there is fear that food stocks could run out again in May, the global body said.

Jose Graziano da Silva, the director general of the U.N.'s Food and Agriculture Organization, warned that without assistance in the region over the next three months "those people will not survive."

"The Horn of Africa will be for FAO the most important region and we'll be doing our best here to improve food security," he said. "We do believe it is possible to have a Horn of Africa free of hunger."

The international body declared famine in Somalia last July after successive failed rains.

Tens of thousands have died due to famine in south and central Somalia, much of which is controlled by Islamist militants.

While aid deliveries to some 180,000 people in camps in the capital Mogadishu have improved the situation there, fighting in southern and central Somalia is still hampering aid deliveries to the worst-hit areas.

With no let up in violence by Islamist rebels for the past five years, Kenyan and Ethiopian forces last year moved into the country to help the governemnt fight the al Qaida-linked militants al Shabaab.

Al Shabaab claims there is no hunger crisis in parts of the country it governed and accused aid agencies of misleading the population. The militant group this week banned the international Red Cross from operating in southern Somalia.

Bowden said any reduction in assistance "is of critical concern to us," and he urged all sides of the conflict not to impede humanitarian aid.

The fighting, combined with attacks on aid workers and a history of aid being manipulated for political gain, means Somalia is one of the toughest countries for relief agencies to operate in.

Over the last year thousands of Somalis have fled to refugee camps in Kenya, Ethiopia and the Somali capital Mogadishu in search of food.