Local hospital staff roll a wounded Doctors Without Borders (MSF)
foreign aid worker on a stretcher to hospital after a gunman opened fire
on an MSF compound in 2011 in Mogadishu, Somalia. FILE PHOTO | MOHAMED
ABDIWAHAB |
AFP
By KATY MIGIRO
In Summary
- Somalia is one of the most difficult countries for relief agencies to operate in.
- Warring parties have deliberately targeted aid workers and manipulated aid for political gain.
Attacks on aid workers delivering supplies in Somalia almost
doubled in 2015 and the number killed jumped to 17 from 10 the year
before, the United Nations said on Tuesday.
Somalia has been mired in conflict since civil war broke out in
1991 and is one of the most difficult countries for relief agencies to
operate in.
The number of attacks on aid agency staff there rose to 140 last year from 75 in 2014, the world body said.
The Islamist militant group al Shabaab has waged a decade-long
insurgency against the Somali government, which is backed by African
Union troops. Warring parties have deliberately targeted aid workers and
manipulated aid for political gain.
"Attacks and threats against humanitarians increased," the UN
Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said in a bulletin,
adding that there were also 18 injuries, 11 abductions and 38 arrests in
2015 involving aid agency staff.
Fighting, poor infrastructure and funding shortages make it
difficult to reach the 40 percent of Somalia's 12 million people needing
aid, OCHA said.
Some parts of south-central Somalia are only accessible by air, driving up the cost of delivering essentials like food.
African Union troops have taken major towns from al Shabaab but
the group still controls swathes of countryside and has laid siege to
urban areas.
"Non-state armed actors continued to impose bans on commercial
activities in some areas in Bakool, Bay, Gedo and Hiraan regions,
thereby disrupting the delivery of humanitarian supplies and basic
commercial commodities," the UN said.
Northern regions of the Horn of Africa nation are experiencing
drought, and almost 380,000 people are running short of water and
pasture for their animals, it said.
Aid agencies received less than half the money they requested for aid for Somalia in 2015.
-Reuters-
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