Somali leaders agree to hold elections in a year

MOGADISHU, Somalia — Leaders in Somalia signed a deal on Tuesday planning to hold elections within a year, aiming to end a string of ineffective transitional U.N.-backed administrations.

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The deal commits the government to a new constitution, stipulates reforms in governance and security services and calls for talks with armed opposition groups. It also says African Union troops supporting the government should spread beyond the capital of Mogadishu.

That is all the territory the transitional administration currently holds. Most of the rest of southern Somalia is held by Islamist insurgents, although allied militias hold a few other areas in southern Somalia.

The plan says the international community will provide financial support based on the achievement of results. The government currently gets little direct support from Western donors, who worry about corruption. But over the past two years it has received tens of millions of dollars in cash, mainly from Arab states. Most of that is unaccounted for.

The plan is an "important measure" that sets out timelines and benchmarks, said Augustine Mahiga, the top United Nations official working on Somalia.

"The Somali people are expecting us to achieve full security so that they can have a good life. We will sustain and honor their dignity, and will lead them to prosperity," said Somali President Sheik Sharif Sheik Ahmed.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon welcomed the agreement by Somali leaders on a "roadmap" for completing the current transitional period and urged them to implement it "in the interest of bringing unity, peace and stability to Somalia and its people," according to the spokesperson for his office.

A long-running feud between the president and the speaker of parliament is one reason the government has remained weak and divided.

War-ravaged Somalia was supposed to have elections last August but the government extended its mandate by a year after the international community could not agree what to do. Somalia has had transitional administrations for the past seven years but has not had a functioning central government since 1991.

The current administration is widely perceived as corrupt and ineffective, and many analysts say that as long as it is assured of the support of the international community in the fight against the Islamist insurgency it has little incentive to change.

Currently four million Somalis — over half the population — are dependent on food aid, according to the U.N. Around 750,000 living in famine-affected regions are at risk of starving to death in the next four months. Aid cannot reach most of them because the insurgents block many aid agencies from working in their territory and even in government-held areas shoot-outs at aid distributions are common and up to half of food aid is stolen and sold.

Copyright 2011 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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Somali refugees pack capital after rebels quit (Reuters)

MOGADISHU (Reuters) – Thousands of Somali refugees, fleeing famine and years of violence, streamed into Mogadishu on Monday searching for food after Islamist rebels withdrew from the capital.

The al Qaeda-affiliated al Shabaab insurgents began pulling their fighters out of Mogadishu over the weekend, raising hopes that humanitarian groups would be able to step up aid deliveries after years of blockages by the militant group.

Locals told Reuters long lines of refugees were now heading to the battle-scarred city to escape the region's worst drought in decades, and existing supplies were already running low.

The United Nations says about 3.6 million people are at risk of starvation in Somalia and about 12 million people across the Horn of Africa region, including in Ethiopia and Kenya.

"Now thousands ... are on the way from Bakool and Bay (regions) to Mogadishu," Sherif Isak, 58, a refugee in Badbaado camp on the outskirts of the capital, told Reuters.

"I cannot say it will rain but I am sure life will improve if al Shabaab melts away. More agencies will come and people will get food and jobs," he said.

Al Shabaab withdrew four years into their battle to overthrow Somalia's Western-backed government, an insurgency that has driven the chaotic country deeper into anarchy.

Somalia has been without an effective central government since the fall of dictator Mohamed Siad Barre 20 years ago, and peace is a distinct prospect.

The militants, hostile to any Western intervention, have blocked humanitarian deliveries in the past, saying aid creates dependency. Aid agencies say they have been unable to reach more than 2 million Somalis facing starvation in rebel-held territories.

Days after al Shabaab's departure, the first of three flights from the U.N. refugee agency UNHCR landed in Mogadishu Monday, carrying more than 31 tons of shelter material, including blankets and jerricans for water.

Local officials said they were cautiously hopeful.

"If ongoing aid flights keep coming to Mogadishu, we are optimistic that people will survive," Fartun Abdisalan Adam, a local rights group official told Reuters in Mogadishu.

But existing supplies were running low. "The refugees are still storming the capital in search of food and there is not enough food for them to survive in the capital," she added.

Somalia's struggling government hailed the rebels' exit as a major victory but al Shabaab said their withdrawal was just tactical and promised to return, and analysts said the exit could herald a wave of al Qaeda-style suicide attacks.

CAR BLAST

Monday afternoon, a suicide car bomb detonated prematurely 13 km (8 miles) south of Mogadishu, officials said.

"We understand a car full of explosives detonated unexpectedly. Only the driver died, but two civilians were also injured," said Captain Ndayiragije Come, a spokesman for the African Union (AU) peace keeping force, AMISOM.

"The suicide car bomb was heading to Mogadishu. Al Shabaab has not given up war. They are masterminding more blasts but we are very alert."

Mogadishu residents said they still felt far from secure. Many feared fresh fighting between government troops and remnants of the rebel force hiding out in the capital.

Militants have threatened to behead anyone who betrayed their fighters to the police.

"I think this is one of the riskiest operating environments of any humanitarian operation in the world right now so I think sure, there's risk of an uptick in the fighting, there are all sorts of risks," a senior U.S. official traveling with the delegation of Jill Biden, the wife of U.S. Vice President Joe Biden.

Biden was visiting Dadaab, the world's largest refugee camp just over Somalia's border in neighboring Kenya. Dadaab, declared full in 2008, has seen an influx of about 1,500 Somali refugees a day since late July.

"There's such a great influx every single day ... coming in here that I think it's just getting overwhelming for them to handle it all. We need to stay ahead of it," Biden told reporters.

(Additional reporting and writing by Yara Bayoumy; Editing by James Macharia)

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Somali refugees: No food to break Ramadan fast

DADAAB, Kenya — As the Islamic holy month of Ramadan begins, Faduma Aden is fasting all day even though she doesn't have enough food to celebrate with a sundown feast. The Somali mother of three, who fled starvation in her homeland, says she fasts because she fears God.

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Muslims around the world mark sundown during Ramadan with extravagant dinners after not eating from sunrise to sundown. That kind of nighttime celebration is unthinkable this year for most Somalis, who are enduring the worst famine in a generation.

And even though Islam allows the ailing to eat, for many Somalis it's a matter of faith to participate in Ramadan's fast.

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"It hard for me to fast, but I did fast for fear of God," said Aden, who is among tens of thousands who have made the arduous journey, often on foot, to this refugee camp in neighboring Kenya.

Others, like Mohamed Mohamud Abdulle, are ashamed they don't have food "to console the soul" at sundown after fasting all day.

"How will I fast when I don't have something to break it?" asked Abdulle. "All my family are hungry and I have nothing to feed them. I feel the hunger that forced me from my home has doubled here."

Story: U.N. flies food into Somali capital

Ramadan at a time of political upheaval
For much of the Muslim world, Ramadan this year falls at a time of political upheaval. Food prices typically spike during the Muslim religious month, and the elaborate dinners many in the Middle East put on to break the daily fast drive a deep hole in household budgets.

Fleeing Somalis say they have already been forced by famine to fast for weeks or months, without the end-of-day meal to regain their strength.

"I cannot fast because I cannot get food to break it and eat before the morning," said Nur Ahmed, a father of six at a camp for displaced people in the Somali capital, Mogadishu, whose wife died last year during childbirth.

Sheik Ali Sheik Hussein, a mosque leader in Mogadishu, called it "worrying" that many Somalis cannot fast because they are already weak from hunger and don't have food to regain their strength after sundown.

"We have asked all Muslims to donate to help those dying from hunger," he said. "Muslims should not be silent on this situation, so we shall help if Allah wills."

At a hospital run by the International Committee of the Red Cross in the Dadaab camp, clinician Muhammed Hussein breaks away from examining a patient to note that his Ramadan fast gives him greater understanding of the suffering of famine victims.

"It gives you a lot of sympathy when you yourself feel hungry, you will understand the pain of someone who has not eaten... With this kind of severe malnutrition, people have no energy to walk, they have been walking from Kismayo in Somalia to this place. It gives you that heart to feel mercy for the people who are suffering."

In a Ramadan statement Monday, President Barack Obama said fasting can be used to "increase spirituality, discipline, and consciousness of God's mercy." Obama said now is a time for the world to come together to support famine relief efforts.

"The heartbreaking accounts of lost lives and the images of families and children in Somalia and the Horn of Africa struggling to survive remind us of our common humanity and compel us to act," Obama said.

Some in the communities around the Dadaab refugee camp are stepping forward to help. At the Dagahaley refugee camp, part of the larger Dadaab camps, three distribution centers run by local elders provide food and money each day for more than 1,000 families and individuals.

Haggard mothers and emaciated children
Moved by tragic scenes of haggard mothers and emaciated children, Somalis in the diaspora are wiring hundreds of dollars to community leaders so they can buy food and clothes for the new arrivals.

"The hunger and suffering faced by the new arrivals have moved us into action," said Hussein Sheik Mohamed, part of a team of volunteers who accepts donations from Somalis around the world and distributes aid.

The Dadaab initiative started with people at nearby mosques who wanted to respond to the needs of refugees pouring into the camp. They called former refugees to help new arrivals with whatever they can find: Food, money, clothing and mattresses were donated.

The U.N. says more than 11 million people in the Horn of Africa need food aid, but 2.2 million are in peril in a region of south-central Somalia controlled by the al-Qaida-linked militant group al-Shabab that is largely inaccessible to aid groups.

In a bit of good news, however, the International Committee of the Red Cross said Monday it was now distributing food to 162,000 people in south-central Somalia — the first large-scale distribution in the region since the beginning of the year.

"This operation demonstrates the ICRC's ability to deliver emergency aid directly to the people affected in southern Somalia," said Andrea Heath. "But this distribution assists only a small percentage of those in need. More aid will be required to help the population bridge the gap until the next harvest in December."

Salad Salah is one of those still in need. He fled to a refugee camp in Mogadishu, and said that participating in Ramadan this year would be a form of "suicide."

"We wouldn't like to miss Ramadan but the conditions here say we must," he said.

___

How to help: http://www.interaction.org/crisis-list/interaction-members-respond-drought-crisis-horn-africa

Copyright 2011 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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Somali refugee: 'We have to live here. We have no choice.'

Aug. 1: A U.N. representative says that famine in the Horn of Africa is spreading and may soon engulf as many as six more regions in Somalia. The number of people in urgent need of food could keep growing over the next three or four months. NBC's Kate Snow reports from Dadaab, Kenya.

By Kate Snow, NBC News Correspondent

DADAAB, Kenya – Osman Ali is a tall man who walks with purpose. He has the gait of someone who’s done a lot of walking in his life.

No surprise – he is a herder. Or rather, he was. Most of the Somali refugees here in Dadaab have left behind a nomadic lifestyle involving goats, cattle or crops.

"I had 40 camels, 30 goats and 60 cattle," he told me proudly as we walked the red-dirt path back to his temporary hut on the outskirts of the Ifo refugee camp in Dadaab. Not anymore. When the drought hit, his livestock died of starvation, one by one. Eventually, he had no way to make a living for his large family. (Ali has two wives with 11 children between them).

With no other alternative, Ali gathered his own family and some of his siblings and their families. The entire clan set out from Dinsor, Somalia, on foot. It took them 20 days and 20 nights of walking to reach the camp.

Ali says they were lucky none of the women were hurt or brutalized along the journey. There have been many reports of rape and sexual violence against the women who have been forced to flee their homes in Somali to reach refugee camps in northern Kenya.

But he did lose a nephew who died of hunger as they made the long trek.

Home now is a tent he built out of branches, covered in plastic bags. When he invited me inside, I had to duck and watch out for thorns. The entire hut was about 8 feet in diameter – the size of a two-person backpacking tent. Ali is living there with one of his wives and six children.

As we walked in, I jumped back. A 2-year-old was barely visible, asleep on the ground. I nearly stepped on her. She was tinier than a 2-year-old should be.

I asked Ali how long he thinks he can live like this. He shrugged. "This is the situation we’re in," he said. "We have to live here."

"We have no choice," he said. And then he rubbed his thumb and fingers together, the universal sign for money. No money.

Yes, he is angry. But he is also resigned, tired and hungry.

Despite that hunger, the Ali clan is observing the traditional Ramadan fast. They won’t eat at all until sundown. And then the women will prepare dinner for everyone.

This afternoon they hauled back their first rations of oil and flour after being processed at the refugee camp. The rations are supposed to be enough to last three weeks. Ali believes it won’t last that long. They have to share their supply with other members of their clan who have none. It is, he said, the right thing to do.

See more of Kate Snow's reporting on the famine in East Africa on Nightly News tonight.

Famine in the Horn of Africa: How to help

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U.N. flies food into famine-hit Somali capital

MOGADISHU — The United Nations airlifted emergency food for starving children into the Somali capital Mogadishu on Wednesday as aid groups warned of a growing influx of hungry families from the famine-hit south of the country.

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Some 3.7 million Somalis — almost half of the population — are going hungry with drought hitting some 11.6 million people across what local media have dubbed a "triangle of death" straddling Kenya, Somalia and Ethiopia.

Though the U.N. food agency had already distributed food in the capital, this is its first airlift of food into Somalia since the food crisis began.

"We need to scale up our programs, and especially the nutrition programs, in order to avoid children falling into severe malnutrition," Stephanie Savariaud, a U.N. World Food Program (WFP) spokeswoman, told Reuters.

"Then they need to get hospitalized and it's much more difficult to save them."

The U.N. plane carried 10 tons of so-called therapeutic food — the type used to feed malnourished children under five. The shipment will feed 3,500 children for a month, WFP said.

The agency said it has an additional 70 tons ready in Kenya, which it will fly to Somalia over the coming days.

Aid agencies say they cannot reach more than 2 million Somalis facing starvation in the parts of the country where Islamist militants control much of the worst-hit areas.

WFP officials have said they will try to deliver food to the areas controlled by the al-Qaida-linked al Shabaab rebels over the next week and that they will consider food drops from aircraft as a last resort.

There are about 400,000 displaced people in the capital Mogadishu, with about 1,000 new arrivals each day, the U.N.'s refugee agency (UNHCR) said in a statement on Tuesday. It estimated that 100,000 internally displaced people have arrived in the city over the last two months.

People in makeshift settlements are fighting over food being distributed by local charities, with the weaker ones unable to push through the crowds to get it, UNHCR said.

"Even if people are able to obtain the food and water being distributed, they often lack even the most basic containers to carry it. Often, they must haul food and water in plastic bags," UNHCR said.

The WFP has set up 16 feeding centers across the capital, providing hot meals to new arrivals using supplies delivered by sea from Kenya and Tanzania.

Boats are continuing to shift food in but they can take months to arrive. They are escorted by the European Naval Force to Somalia to deter pirate attacks.

Copyright 2011 Thomson Reuters. Click for restrictions.

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U.N. flies food into famine-hit Somali capital (Reuters)

MOGADISHU (Reuters) – The United Nations airlifted emergency food for starving children into the Somali capital Mogadishu on Wednesday as aid groups warned of a growing influx of hungry families from the famine-hit south of the country.

Some 3.7 million Somalis -- almost half of the population -- are going hungry with drought hitting some 11.6 million people across what local media have dubbed a "triangle of death" straddling Kenya, Somalia and Ethiopia.

Though the U.N. food agency had already distributed food in the capital, this is its first airlift of food into Somalia since the food crisis began.

"We need to scale up our programs, and especially the nutrition programs, in order to avoid children falling into severe malnutrition," Stephanie Savariaud, a U.N. World Food Programme (WFP) spokeswoman, told Reuters.

"Then they need to get hospitalized and it's much more difficult to save them."

The U.N. plane carried 10 tonnes of so-called therapeutic food -- the type used to feed malnourished children under five. The shipment will feed 3,500 children for a month, WFP said.

The agency said it has an additional 70 tonnes ready in Kenya, which it will fly to Somalia over the coming days.

Aid agencies say they cannot reach more than two million Somalis facing starvation in the parts of the country where Islamist militants control much of the worst-hit areas.

WFP officials have said they will try to deliver food to the areas controlled by the al Qaeda-linked al Shabaab rebels over the next week and that they will consider food drops from aircrafts as a last resort.

There are about 400,000 displaced people in the capital Mogadishu, with about 1,000 new arrivals each day, the U.N.'s refugee agency (UNHCR) said in a statement on Tuesday. It estimated that 100,000 internally displaced people have arrived in the city over the last two months.

People in makeshift settlements are fighting over food being distributed by local charities, with the weaker ones unable to push through the crowds to get it, UNHCR said.

"Even if people are able to obtain the food and water being distributed, they often lack even the most basic containers to carry it. Often, they must haul food and water in plastic bags," UNHCR said.

The WFP has set up 16 feeding centers across the capital, providing hot meals to new arrivals using supplies delivered by sea from Kenya and Tanzania.

Boats are continuing to shift food in but they can take months to arrive. They are escorted by the European Naval Force to Somalia to deter pirate attacks.

(Additional reporting and writing by Katy Migiro in Nairobi; Editing by Barry Malone and Elizabeth Fullerton)

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