(Garissa) - The Kenyan security forces are beating and arbitrarily detaining citizens and Somali refugees in Kenya's North Eastern province, which borders on Somalia, despite repeated pledges to stop such abuses, Human Rights Watch said today.

On January 11, 2012, in the latest of a series of incidents documented by Human Rights Watch since October 2011, security forces rounded up and beat residents of Garissa, the provincial capital, in an open field within the enclosure of the local military camp. A Human Rights Watch researcher witnessed the incident.

"When military officers can beat civilians in broad daylight without fearing repercussions, it's clear that impunity has become the norm," said Daniel Bekele, Africa director at Human Rights Watch. "Repeated promises by both the police and the military to stop these abuses and investigate have amounted to nothing."

The Kenyan police and military have been responsible for a growing number of serious abuses against civilians since the Kenya Defence Forces entered southern Somalia in October, with the stated aim of eliminating al-Shabaab, an Islamist militia. The same month, suspected al-Shabaab sympathizers initiated a series of attacks against police, military, and civilian targets in Kenya.

In response, members of the security forces have been responsible for rape, beatings, looting, and arbitrary arrests of civilians. The crackdown has largely targeted Somali refugees and Kenyan ethnic Somalis, but residents of other ethnic backgrounds in North Eastern province have also been victimized.

The incident in Garissa on January 11 involved Kenyan citizens who told Human Rights Watch that they had been arbitrarily detained by the military. One of them, Ali Ibrahim Hilole, was at a shop across from the military camp buying items for a hospitalized relative when a military officer said to him: "Why are you standing here? So you're al-Shabaab." Soldiers forced him to accompany them to the camp, where they kicked him and told him to roll around on the ground.

Yusuf Khalif Mohamed, a long distance truck driver, stopped in Garissa for a soft drink on his way from Mombasa to Dadaab, where he was to make a food delivery for UNICEF. He parked his truck near the military camp, not knowing that parking was prohibited there. A military officer forced him to come to the camp, where soldiers threw a 20-liter container of water on him, forced him to roll on the ground, kicked him on the side, and hit him on the head with the butt of a gun. Mohamed told Human Rights Watch that one of them said, "I think you are al-Shabaab. You are bothering us in Somalia, and now you've come to bother us here."

Both men, along with at least five to seven others who were similarly detained and mistreated - most of them truck drivers, and all of them Kenyan citizens - were released after 30 minutes. They were not interrogated or charged with any crime.

A Human Rights Watch researcher who attempted to visit the military camp to speak to the officer in charge witnessed soldiers forcing several men to lie down in the dirt and forcing another man to frog-jump across the field and to assume various gymnastic positions. Military personnel refused entry to Human Rights Watch, one of them stating, "There are no human rights here."

The military spokesperson, Maj. Emmanuel Chirchir, said by phone from Nairobi that the people held at the military camp were being questioned because they had tried to build an illegal structure to sell things outside the camp. Chirchir said he did not have knowledge of any abuses, but assured Human Rights Watch that the military would investigate the allegations.

The events in Garissa follow a series of human rights violations by security forces against ethnic Somalis and others. On November 11, soldiers in Garissa rounded up ethnic Somalis arbitrarily on the basis of their appearance, beat them, and forced them to sit in dirty water while interrogating them.

On November 24, following two grenade attacks on civilian targets in Garissa and an improvised explosive device (IED) attack on a military convoy in Mandera, police and soldiers rounded up hundreds of suspects in both towns. Some were beaten so severely that they suffered broken limbs. In the days following the attacks, suspects were arrested at random. Human Rights Watch interviewed some who were taken to Garissa military camp and forced to do humiliating exercises, such as standing on their heads, and were beaten if they could not comply.

Explosions in the town of Wajir in early December were also followed by arbitrary arrests and beatings. A local activist in Wajir told Human Rights Watch that after an IED went off on December 12, injuring an intelligence officer and several others, police and soldiers rounded up and beat ethnic Somalis over the next three days.

"They criminalize all Somali people," he said. "Whenever a crime is committed, detaining and torturing people doesn't seem like a good security strategy. It is creating a barrier between the people and the security forces."

The worst abuses took place at Dadaab, home to over 460,000 mostly Somali refugees. A police officer was killed by an IED at Dadaab on December 5, leading to arbitrary arrests of those in the vicinity. After further explosions targeting police vehicles on December 19 and 20, one of them killing a police officer, police reacted angrily, beating refugees, and, in several cases, raping women. The chair of the Supreme Council of Muslims of Kenya, which conducted investigations in the camps, said that Kenyan police raped at least seven women following the explosions. Other victims suffered broken limbs.

A Garissa-based organization, Citizen Rights Watch, found that on the same occasion police looted dozens of shops, stealing over 27 million Kenyan shillings (US$310,000) worth of property and money that refugee traders stored in their shops.

Garissa residents interviewed by Human Rights Watch complained that police have not conducted thorough investigations to identify the actual perpetrators of either the initial attacks or the subsequent abuses by the security forces.

"Kenya's security forces are rightly concerned about attacks by suspected al-Shabaab members, and should be doing more, not less, to identify the attackers," Bekele said. "But beating, raping, and humiliating innocent Kenyan citizens and Somali refugees accomplishes nothing. Those in the security forces who are responsible for these abuses should be investigated and prosecuted."

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Somalia

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Reference Date: 09-January-2012 FOOD SECURITY SNAPSHOT Famine persists in Middle Shabelle and among Afgoye and Mogadishu IDPs Currently, about 4 million people are estimated to be in need of humanitarian assistance Humanitarian aid delivery is heavily hampered by persistent conflict and civil insecurity Mixed prospects for the 2011/12 secondary “deyr” season crop production Prices of maize declined sharply in the last six months Famine still persists in the South, despite some improvements Famine conditions still persist in agropastoral areas of Middle Shabelle and among IDP populations in Afgoye and Mogadishu. In areas of Bay, Bakool and Lower Shabelle, formerly classified as IPC Phase 5 (Famine), substantial humanitarian assistance and favourable rainfall have mitigated food deficit levels and reduced mortality rates. These areas, as of 18 November 2011, have been downgraded to IPC Phase 4 (Emergency). Following these improvements, the number of people facing starvation declined from 750 000 in August 2011 to 250 000 in late November 2011. Currently, about 4 million people, more than a third of the country’s population, are estimated to be in need of humanitarian assistance. Most of them are pastoral and agro-pastoral households in central and southern areas whose food security conditions have precipitously deteriorated since the poor outturn of the 2010 “deyr” season. Although several areas are expected to remain in IPC Phase 4 (Emergency), no famine is anticipated during the January-March 2012 period, given the deyr harvest. Possible exceptions are IDPs. The number of people in need of humanitarian assistance is likely to remain near current levels until the next main “gu” season harvest in July/August 2012. Rate of population displacements declines The drought-induced influx of Somali refugees into neighbouring countries has significantly declined in recent weeks and, according to UNHCR, the total number of refugees hosted in camps in Kenya, Ethiopia and Djibouti is currently estimated at about 725 000 people Civil insecurity and armed conflicts continue to represent the major serious threat to food security in most areas of southern and central Somalia, particularly in Mogadishu, parts of Bakool, Juba, Hiran, Mudug, Galgadud, Lower Juba and Gedo regions. This situation has resulted in loss of human lives, increased displacements of civilians, disruption of trade activities and increased transportation costs, while presenting an obstacle to the delivery of humanitarian assistance. Mixed prospects for 2011/12 secondary “deyr” season crops Harvesting of 2011/12 “deyr” cereal crops is about to start and will continue until March. Planting has extended up to the end of November due to continued heavy rains. Crop production is forecast to be average in most crop producing areas of southern and central Somalia due to good and evenly distributed rainfall as well as average planted area. According to the latest deyr production outlook report by FSNAU, major producing regions of Lower Shabelle and Bay are expected to have sufficient cereal stocks at least up to the beginning of the next “gu” harvest in July 2012. Good stock availability is also forecast in Middle Shabelle, Hiran and Bakool regions. In contrast, crop production is expected to be well below average in various riverine districts of Juba and Gedo regions due flash floods and river flooding following torrential rains from late October to early December that damaged standing crops, especially to sorghum. However, this excess moisture will benefit off-season crops, mainly sesame, maize and other cash crops, to be harvested by the end of March 2012. Most parts of Northern regions received favorable rains, with the exception of some areas of Bari and Sanaag regions and the Nugal valley of Sool region where crop and pasture conditions have been affected by insufficient precipitations. In the Northwest, good 2011 “karan” rains (August-October) benefitted cereal crop production that is estimated at 68 000 tons, the second best performance since 1998. Declining prices of maize and sorghum Prices of domestically produced staple cereal crops reached record levels in June 2011 in most markets and then sharply decreased in the following six months. Prices of maize declined from June to December in the main markets of Mogadishu, the capital city, and Marka, located in the main maize producing southern region of Lower Shabelle, by 62 and 72 percent, respectively. The significant decrease followed the increased supplies from the 2011 “gu” harvest last August, the good off-season crops harvested in the riverine areas of Lower Shabelle and, most importantly, the delivery of humanitarian assistance. Prices of red sorghum have also significantly decreased in Mogadishu and Marka markets as a consequence of the possibility for households to substitute sorghum with low-price relief maize. In general, maize and red sorghum were traded in December 2011 at lower or similar levels of one year earlier. Prices of imported rice declined between August/September and December by about 18 to 22 percent respectively in Marka and Mogadishu, mainly due to increased supplies from the main regional ports, after the end of monsoon season, and the slight appreciation of the Somali Shilling against the US dollar. Rice prices are at about the same levels of December 2010 in Marka and in Mogadishu, while they are higher in other several markets, due to high fuel prices increasing transport costs and market disruptions caused by civil insecurity.

Famine-hit Somalis could lose access to up to $100m of remittances from relatives in the US, charities say.

They urged a US bank and the Treasury not to disrupt money transfers to Somalia, where more than a quarter of a million people are at risk.

The Franklin Bank is thought to be the last major US bank to offer remittance services to Somalis living there.

But it says it will stop the service on 30 December because of US counter-terrorism regulations.

The US Treasury said banks had to observe diligence rules but that there was "no assumption on the part of the Treasury that money transmitters present a uniform or unacceptably high risk of money laundering".

'Devastating'

Oxfam America wants the bank and hawalas (money transfer businesses in Somalia, where there are no banks) to work with the US government to find a solution.

"It is estimated that $100m in remittances goes to Somalia from the US every year. This is the worst time for this service to stop," said Shannon Scribner of Oxfam America.

"Any gaps with remittance flows in the middle of the famine could be disastrous. The US government should give assurances to the bank that there will be no legal ramifications of providing this service to Somalis in need."

More than 300,000 have fled Somalia's drought, famine and conflict, according to the UN

It is thought that when Franklin Bank stops the service, smaller banks might follow suit.

They would fear being held responsible if money fell into the wrong hands, such those of al-Shabab, an al-Qaeda-linked militant group.

"With famine and drought already impacting families throughout Somalia, the cessation of bank transfers will be devastating on a national scale", said Daniel Wordsworth, president of the American Refugee Committee.

Oxfam spoke to one mother of six in Lower Juba, Somalia, whose brother sends her money from the US.

But he called a week ago to warn that he would be sending the last cash as the hawala might stop working.

"My family is relying 100% on that cash and if it stops, we have no option but to move to Dadaab refugee camps in Kenya," Habiba Abdi Ali said.

The US Treasury said it "engages regularly with the Somali-American community" to "promote the continued use of legitimate and transparent methods" of remittance.

It said it believed the community would continue to have such methods to transfer funds to Somalia.

GENEVA, December 21 (UNHCR) – An improvised explosive device went off on Tuesday near the market at the Ifo refugee camp in Dadaab, Kenya. There were no casualties but a police vehicle was damaged. The explosion came just a day after a blast in nearby Hagadera camp killed one police officer and seriously injured two others.

In a statement issued today, UNHCR expressed alarm at the string of recent security incidents targeting the Dadaab refugee complex in northern Kenya. Dadaab is the world's largest refugee settlement and shelters more than 460,000 people.

In total there have been four explosions at Dadaab since October, when three aid workers were kidnapped. The blasts have killed three Kenyan police officers and wounded four others. There have also been threats against humanitarian agencies working in Dadaab. UNHCR condemned these attacks and called for respect for peace and the civilian nature of the refugee camps.

"We are deeply concerned for the well-being and safety of Somali refugees in Dadaab, most of whom are women, children and elderly," said António Guterres, the UN's High Commissioner for refugees. "For the sake of refugees and those who are there to help them, it is of paramount importance to preserve the peaceful and civilian character of the camps."

A deadly mix of conflict, persecution, drought and famine has seen 295,000 people fleeing Somalia this year. More than half have found shelter at the Dadaab refugee camps in Kenya. Others fled to Ethiopia, Yemen and Djibouti.

In Dadaab, development of new sites, registration, deliveries of emergency assistance and services continued uninterrupted throughout the year. However, since October, growing insecurity has crippled the ability of aid agencies to deliver the all but life-saving assistance – mainly food, water and health services. UNHCR and its partners are exploring options to allow full operations to resume.

The situation in Dadaab has been further complicated in recent months by an outbreak of cholera, believed to have started among new arrivals who acquired it in Somalia or en route to Dadaab. Although new cases are now on a downward trend, UNHCR has registered 897 cases, and three deaths, since August. Worsening security, rains and flooding have also made it harder to truck in water to parts of the camps.

Somalia remains one of the worst humanitarian crises in the world. More than 950,000 Somalis live as refugees in neighbouring countries, while another 1.46 million are internally displaced.

Troops from Djibouti have arrived in Somalia's capital, Mogadishu, to bolster the 10,000-strong African Union (AU) force battling Islamist militants.

It is just the third country to contribute to the AU force, which says it needs extra troops to hold territory gained from the al-Shabab Islamists.

Kenya also says its troops in southern Somalia will join the AU force.

Al-Qaeda-linked al-Shabab is fighting to overthrow the UN-backed interim government.

It is estimated to have between 7,000 and 9,000 fighters and controls many southern and central areas of the country.

In August, it announced a tactical withdrawal from Mogadishu after fierce fighting with AU forces.

Broken promises

But the group has continued to detonate bombs in the city, killing five people in an attack at a busy junction earlier this month.

AU commanders say they need up to 20,000 troops to hold on to Mogadishu.

The BBC's Mohamed Dore in Mogadishu says a plane carrying the Djiboutian troops has landed in the city.

The AU mission said 100 soldiers had already arrived, with a further 800 to follow in the next week or so. Until now, the force only consisted of troops from Uganda and Burundi.

"We are desperately in need of military support to eliminate the threat of al-Shabab," said Somali security official Mohamed Abdirahman, according to the AFP news agency.

Other countries that have failed to fulfil promises to send troops include Nigeria and Malawi.

Djibouti borders Somalia and its people speak the same language.

Kenya sent troops in October to pursue al-Shabab after blaming it for a spate of abductions on its side of the border.

The group denies involvement in the abductions.

Somalia has not had a functioning central government for more than 20 years and has been convulsed by fighting between various militias.

The UN says it is the world's worst humanitarian situation, with famine conditions in three southern areas.

By Mohamed Ahmed

MOGADISHU (Reuters) - Islamist militants in Somalia have blocked two International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) convoys carrying emergency food aid for drought victims this month, contractors and a senior rebel said.

Residents of Baidoa, a stronghold of the al Shabaab rebel group, told Reuters they had seen the militants loading food aid from dozens of trucks into their warehouses there on Thursday.

Aid worker sources said al Shabaab wanted to check the quality of the food. However, the targetting of ICRC convoys raised the possibility that the organisation might join a long list of international groups barred from operating inside rebel-controlled areas of Somalia.

"Their claims of checking food quality are misleading. Their intention is very clear, they are looking for justifications to ban the agency like others before," a local ICRC contractor said on condition of anonymity.

The ICRC said in August it was scaling up its emergency food distribution operations in central and southern Somalia to help an additional 1.1 million people hit by drought and war.

It normally has good access to southern and central areas, much of which are controlled by the al Qaeda-linked insurgents, and it is unusual for its convoys to be stopped.

STILL HELD

One large convoy was still being held up in Somalia's Middle Shabelle region after being stopped earlier this month.

"Al Shabaab fighters have surrounded us. They won't release the convoy until a decision comes from their seniors," one truck driver, who declined to be named, told Reuters by telephone.

The convoy was transporting rice, oil and beans, the driver said, and was destined for central Somalia.

The second column was stopped in Gedo, a southern province bordering Ethiopia, and then forced to go to Baidoa.

Aid sources in the Kenyan capital Nairobi, a hub for agencies working in Somalia, confirmed the blockades to Reuters.

A spokeswoman for the ICRC in Geneva declined detailed comment. "Our operations are ongoing and this obviously involves negotiations with different parties to the conflict and concerned authorities," said spokeswoman Nicole Engelbrecht.

"The ICRC does not wish to provide details about such negotiations and various stages of its operations."

The ICRC is by far the largest distributor of food relief in the lawless Horn of Africa country, where more than a quarter of a million people face starvation in the south.

The rebels, who are hostile to Western intervention, banned food aid last year in the areas they controlled and kicked many groups out, saying aid created dependency.

"We are more interested in medical organisations that are running advanced medical facilities. We don't want our people to depend on food aid forever," a senior al Shabaab official told Reuters when asked about the ICRC convoys.

Al Shabaab lifted the aid ban in July when the food crisis hit critical levels, only to re-impose bans on some groups later. Last month they outlawed 16 relief agencies including the U.N.'s World Food Programme.

Abdiweli Mohammed Ali, Somalia's prime minister Photo: NICHOLE SOBECKI

By David Blair, Mogadishu

8:00PM GMT 13 Dec 2011

Mr Ali, who leads Somalia’s officially recognised government, chose the week when the United Nations has appealed for $1.5 billion to help his country’s people to deliver a stinging attack on relief workers.

A Harvard-educated economist, he believes they have become an “entrenched interest group”, exaggerating the scale of suffering in order to drum up donations.

The United Nations says that 250,000 Somalis are suffering from famine in three regions of the country, including Mogadishu. Patches of waste ground across the bullet-scarred city, devastated by two decades of war, are filled with the shacks of refugees who have fled drought and food shortages. Children with distended bellies and stick-like limbs can be seen in many of these sand-blown camps.

Seated in his air-conditioned office, Mr Ali said the UN’s judgment that famine had struck his capital was wrong. “I have no idea how this international community makes the grading. You ask them and tell me how they did it. They don’t know what they’re talking about. But what I can say is enough relief came to Somalia and we provided enough relief to those affected by the famine.”

Mr Ali added: “I don’t believe there’s a famine in Mogadishu. Absolutely no. You know the aid agencies became an entrenched interest group and they say all kind of things that they want to say.”

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Mr Ali cited a searing critique of aid workers, “Lords of Poverty”, written by Graham Hancock, a British author, in 1989. “I don’t want to be a conspiracy theorist, but I believe a lot of what has been said in the 'Lords of Poverty’ book by Graham Hancock,” added the prime minister.

Mr Ali leads a government that depends almost completely on outside donations. Somalia, which collapsed into anarchy in 1991, has no tax system and the prime minister’s administration controls little territory beyond Mogadishu.

Its only significant source of revenue is the capital’s port, which brings in around $12m per year. Virtually all of the rest of this year’s budget of $100m comes from other countries. Mr Ali’s government is probably the most donor-dependent in the world.

Nonetheless, the prime minister said that aid workers “became themselves lords of poverty. They say what they want to say. I don’t want to accuse them, but the statistics that they use sometimes doesn’t make sense to me.”

Aid officials were privately incredulous about Mr Ali’s remarks. The UN says that “tens of thousands” of Somalis have died of hunger this year. Mark Bowden, the humanitarian coordinator for Somalia, said the situation was “expected to remain critical well into next year” and that $1.5 billion was needed to meet the “emergency needs of 4 million people in crisis”.

At Walalah camp in Mogadishu, over 1,000 people live in shacks fashioned from cardboard and brushwood. Because of the dangers of operating in the capital, UN relief agencies have only a skeleton presence. So far, no aid of any kind has reached this camp.

Farhiya Abdi has lived in a shack in Walalah since drought killed all of the animals her family once herded in their home village in Somalia’s interior. Her twin babies are both emaciated from hunger. So far, Mrs Abdi has received no food aid whatever. Only donations from the elders who control the camp have kept her and the children barely alive.

“This is worse than the situation back there in the village,” she said. “But I cannot go back there because all the animals are dead.”

The World Food Programme is supplying feeding centres in the city, but the nearest is several miles away and Mrs Abdi is took weak to walk that distance. Her life, she said, was dominated by “hunger”.

Horn of Africa: As Attention Fades, the Crisis Continues

Tue, 12/13/2011 - 09:21

Washington D.C. -- Refugees International (RI) is calling on the United States to press for the protection of displaced families and humanitarian workers in the Horn of Africa, and to ease restrictions on humanitarian assistance. These are two of the recommendations made in Horn of Africa: Not the Time to Look Away, a new RI report released today. The report also urges the United Nations to address the security concerns of displaced women and children, and to prevent the spread of infectious disease.

"More than six months have passed since Somalia’s famine was first declared, but this crisis is far from over," said RI President Michel Gabaudan, who recently visited IDP and refugee camps in Somalia and neighboring countries. "In some areas, the drought has eased. But continuing insecurity in the camps threatens families and prevents aid workers from delivering vital supplies. This is a difficult situation, but if we improve policing and protection in the camps we can prevent further loss of life."

During a recent visit to the Horn, RI experts found that the UN and other aid providers are successfully providing basic assistance – food, water, and shelter – to thousands of Somalis streaming into the region’s refugee camps. But the lack of security and protection remains a severe, and largely unaddressed, problem. In Kenya’s Dadaab refugee camp, for example, police presence is weak despite repeated militant attacks. Dedicated protection services for women and children – who face rape, trafficking, and abuse – are almost entirely absent, with just one child protection specialist serving the camp’s half a million residents. To tackle these problems, RI is pressing the U.S. to work with Kenya and Ethiopia to establish security in the camps. It is also urging the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) to dedicate more staff and resources to protection.

While in the region, RI also learned of the extreme access challenges faced by humanitarian organizations. Much of south and central Somalia is controlled by Al Shabab, a designated Foreign Terrorist Organization that creates severe obstacles to aid delivery. In November, Al Shabab announced the expulsion from its terrority of more than 16 aid organizations. But the challenges of aid delivery are exacerbated by U.S. aid restrictions designed to isolate Al Shabab. These restrictions are creating additional obstacles to scaling up food distribution within Al Shabab controlled areas.

"A quarter-million people are still at risk of imminent starvation in Somalia," Mr. Gabaudan said. "The U.S. must ensure that vital aid continues to flow, and issuing a general license for aid delivery in these regions is a responsible way to do that."

###

Refugees International is a Washington DC-based organization that advocates to end refugee crises and receives no government or UN funding. For more information, please go to www.refugeesinternational.org.

Contact:
Dara McLeod +1 240 486 3011, dara@refugeesinternational.org

* Second air strike on Baardheere this week

* At least one civilian killed

* Kenya will seek a "peace enforcement" mandate under AU force (Adds al Shabaab, details, background)

By Mohamed Ahmed and Feisal Omar

MOGADISHU, Dec 10 (Reuters) - A warplane bombed a rebel-held town in southern Somalia on Saturday, hitting an empty feeding centre run by the Somali Red Crescent Society (SRCS) and killing one civilian, residents said.

They could not identify who carried out the attack in the town of Baardheere. Kenya, which is eight weeks into a ground and air offensive to crush the al Shabaab rebel group, said on Saturday it had launched an air strike earlier this week on a compound nearby.

"The bomb hit a feeding centre run by the Red Crescent Society and a school building," Hawa Abdillah Mo'alim told Reuters by telephone. "Fortunately it was not a food distribution day," said the woman, a recipient of food aid herself.

The bomb destroyed the centre's critical water tank, residents said. They also said the victim was a man, but no further details were available.

A Kenyan military spokesman was not available to comment.

An aid worker said the death toll would have been higher had the feeding centre been distributing food to displaced famine victims. The International Committee of the Red Cross, which supports the feeding centre, declined to comment.

Residents said al Shabaab had sealed off the area.

On Thursday, Kenya targeted a compound residents said was used by the militants as a training base. Kenyan Colonel Cyres Oguna told a news conference in Nairobi on Saturday the building was an ammunitions depot.

Kenyan troops crossed into Somalia almost two months ago after a wave of kidnappings and cross-border raids it blamed on the rebels.

Its forces initially advanced smoothly on militant towns in Somalia's southern border regions but has since become bogged down by heavy rains and a lack of clear strategy, diplomats say. Kenyan air strikes have intensified in past weeks.

Analysts say that rather than confront Kenya's military head on, the militants had melted into the population from where they launch hit-and-run attacks on the Kenyans.

Kenya wants its forces in Somalia to be integrated into the African Union AMISOM force that has about 9,400 peacekeepers deployed in Mogadishu.

Kenya will be pushing for a more robust "peace enforcement" mandate for its troops in southern Somalia than the peacekeeping mandate the Ugandan and Burundian troops operate under in Mogadishu, Oguna said.

However, becoming a part of AMISOM may not be straight forward, as issues of funding and command and control need to be resolved, and may take several months. (Additional reporting and writing by Richard Lough in Nairobi; Editing by Matthew Jones and Alessandra Rizzo)

NAIROBI, Kenya, Dec 6 – More than 100 suspects were arrested at the Dadaab refugee camp on Tuesday following an attack a day earlier that killed a policeman and wounded three other officers.

North Eastern Provincial Commissioner Joseph ole Serian told Capital News that the suspects were being interrogated over the attack and those found culpable would be arraigned in court.

“Yes, we have arrested 100 suspects in today’s (Tuesday’s) security operation,” the PC said.

There was no immediate indication what charges would be preferred against the suspects, but a police officer in Garissa revealed some of them may be charged with being in the country illegally because no documents were found on them.

“Others are being interrogated to establish if they were involved in the attack or any other criminal activity in the camp,” the officer said.

Another officer added: “They are being interrogated over the landmine attack that killed an Administration Policeman at the Ifo II extension camp within Dadaab.”

Monday’s attack was the latest in a spate of grenade and landmine attacks in Kenya’s border regions with Somalia.

Kenyan officials blame Somali Islamist Shabaab insurgents or their sympathisers for a series of recent shootings and bombings, although armed bandits also operate in the border areas.

Gunmen seized two Spaniards working for Medecins Sans Frontieres (Doctors Without Borders) from Dadaab in October and are thought to have taken them to Somalia.

The kidnapping of the Spaniards was one of the incidents that spurred Kenya to send troops into Somalia to fight the Al Qaeda-linked Shabaab in mid-October.

Regional armies are now pushing against Shabaab positions in Somalia with Kenyan forces in the south; Ugandan and Burundian African Union forces are in Mogadishu, while Ethiopian troops operate in the west.

INTERVIEW: Horn of Africa crisis may last to summer - EU official

06 Dec 2011 16:52

Source: alertnet // Emma Batha

Newly arrived Somali refugees queue to receive the measles vaccine from Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) at the Ifo extension camp in Dadaab, near the Kenya-Somalia border, Aug. 1, 2011. REUTERS/Thomas Mukoya

By Emma Batha

LONDON, Dec 6 (Reuters) - The hunger crisis in Horn of Africa, which has left more than 13 million people at risk of starvation, will continue into the spring and possibly even summer, the European Union’s top aid official said on Tuesday.

European Humanitarian Aid Commissioner Kristalina Georgieva also warned that the Sahel region faced “very dramatic hunger” next year and feared that some countries there were burying their heads in the sand.

The Horn of Africa crisis, triggered by the worst drought in decades, has affected Somalia, Ethiopia, Kenya and Djibouti.

Georgieva said around 250,000 people were at risk of dying from hunger in Somalia, where the country’s two-decade war has exacerbated the famine.

The situation is critical in central and southern Somalia where al Qaeda-affiliated al Shabaab rebels banned 16 relief agencies last week from areas they control.

“The crisis is going to be there at least through the spring and possibly all the way to the summer,” the commissioner told a media briefing in London ahead of talks with British development minister Andrew Mitchell.

Georgieva said she was extremely concerned about the famine’s long-term repercussions on the region because of the vast numbers of Somalis who had fled to refugee camps in Kenya, Ethiopia and Yemen. Instability in Somalia meant they were unlikely to return home once the crisis was over.

The commissioner said there were probably 400,000 to 500,000 Somalis in Yemen, the Arab world’s poorest country which is also plagued by unrest. The figure is twice the official estimate.

“The flow of refugees from poor country to poor country has stability and security implications,” she added.

Georgieva said the famine showed governments and donors must do more to prevent droughts becoming full blown humanitarian crises.

“The Horn of Africa drought… is a wake-up call on how much more we need to do to anticipate and prevent droughts turning into killers. We cannot stop droughts but we can stop famines,” she said.

FEARS OVER MALI

Turning to the Sahel, she said the looming hunger crisis there was likely to be even worse than that in 2010 because the surrounding region was also expected to suffer food problems and would not act as a buffer.

She said there were even concerns that northern Nigeria could be affected.

Niger and Mauritania have already issued alerts following erratic rainfall, droughts and insect infestations.

Although they are likely to be the worst hit countries, Georgieva said both were “looking at the problem with open eyes” and taking precautions including stockpiling food.

“I’m more worried about Mali, and even Burkino Faso, because there seems to be a bit of a desire there to wish the crisis away,” she added.

But the commissioner said the crisis in the arid region south of the Sahara desert would not be of the magnitude seen in the Horn of Africa, partly because donors were mobilising now. The Commission has already provided 55 million euros ($74 million) for the region.

“Investing now is not only morally the right thing to do, but it will cut costs in the future,” she added.

She contrasted the 30 euros ($40) it cost to feed a family in Niger for a month to the 220 euros ($295) it cost to treat just one child with acute malnutrition – a condition which would handicap it for life.

“It’s unfortunate that very often the massive response comes when the crisis is already deep and on the six o’clock news,” she added. “We have to be ready to act independently of the news cycle.”

Georgieva said that in the Horn of Africa the benefits of investing in disaster prevention were clear to see in Moyale in northern Kenya. The district avoided the worst affects of the drought by installing roofs that allow people to harvest water, setting up mobile clinics to prevent child malnutrition and encouraging pastoralists to shrink their herds proportionate to the available grassland.  

“The results are very impressive. The question is why we don’t do this everywhere,” Georgieva added.

(Emma Batha reports for AlertNet, a global humanitarian news service run by Thomson Reuters Foundation. For more stories and information, visit www.trust.org/alertnet)

Ten days ago The New York Times carried the headline, "Somalia Famine Eases With Rainfall and Aid" and quoted UN officials as saying that the number of people facing imminent starvation in Somalia had dropped by half a million to 250,000. To those of us who have been trying to get assistance to the region for the past six months, this is of course good news.

In the first place, it is good just to get the famine mentioned in the mainstream press. Between mid-October and mid-November, CNN had cited the famine fewer than 10 times while referencing Kim Kardasian's mini-marriage almost 70 and Herman Cain's alleged sexual escapades nearly 200. And it is good news because fewer people are dying. But the true story is far more complex than it appears.

Aid agencies are often accused of exaggerating the direness of humanitarian crises for their own mercenary reasons. When people are thought not to be in jeopardy, funds dry up; success breeds indifference. In the case of Somalia, NGOs and the UN have done a remarkable job of getting aid to the needy under extraordinarily difficult circumstances -- a failed government in Mogadishu; threats from the terrorist group Al Shabab; a military incursion by Kenya; and an utterly inadequate infrastructure for the delivery of supplies. The international community can take some justifiable pride in its accomplishments. But equally justified are the worries.

I live in Gloucester, MA, home of The Perfect Storm, Sebastian Junger's famous account of the sword fishing boat Andrea Gail and the perfect conjunction of low pressure, high pressure and tropical moisture that sunk her near Sable Island in the north Atlantic in the fall of 1991. I have frequently thought of the applicability of that metaphor to Somalia the past six months as it experienced its own perfect storm through a combination of drought, governmental incompetence and violence -- first internal violence prompted largely by Al Shabab, and then violence wrought by Kenyan (and, potentially, Ethiopian) intervention. The result was as many as 13 million people across the Horn of Africa in need of emergency assistance.

That number is now down to 4 million -- better but still about the population of Los Angeles. Three of the six zones in Somalia, the worst of the affected areas being the ones controlled by Al Shabab, still face famine and Al Shabab continues to threaten and harass aid workers. What has been little noticed, moreover, is that drought knows no borders. The crisis is not confined to Somalia but has spilled over into Kenya and Ethiopia, both relatively stable countries until now, where it could have long-term drastic consequences.

Among other things, tens of thousands of Kenyans and Ethiopians have been internally displaced by the famine and the conflict. Because refugee complexes take only those who have crossed borders, tensions between the internally displaced and Somali refugees remain high. In addition, Somalia is a vortex that has already drawn Kenya into the fighting and threatens to do the same with Ethiopia, thus destabilizing the region further and putting more children are at increased risk of forced conscription and sexual appropriation. Perhaps most damaging in the long run is the destruction to the pastoral lifestyles that so many worked so hard to establish. With the loss of their herds to drought, men have abandoned their families, leaving women and children even more vulnerable than usual, and providing a potential source of fresh recruits for the militias that have so plagued the region.

The famine is, in other words, just one of the lenses through which to view this tragedy. And that makes sense because the famine was but a symptom of far deeper underlying fissures. Not only can the partial alleviation of the food emergency be quickly reversed if the international community lets down its guard but those fissures will only get worse if Kenya and Ethiopia get drawn into a long-running war.

So, reasonable as it may be to pause for a moment to celebrate progress, it is critically important to keep in mind that that perfect storm has far from abated and now threatens to sweep up two more countries in its tumultuous wake. Somalia itself will not soon be righted but ongoing attention to the region's misery will help contain the contagion. And while that may not be as immediately intriguing as Kim or Herman's relational woes, it is in the last analysis far more morally and strategically compelling.

William F. Schulz, former executive director of Amnesty International USA, is president of the Unitarian Universalist Service Committee.

By Spencer Fields

It’s really quite simple.  For the Least Developed Countries (LDCs), “funding is paramount,” to use the succinct summary provided by Pa Ousman Jarju, the Gambian chair of the LDC Group.

The Least Developed Countries have already written their National Adaptation Programmes of Action (NAPAs), comprehensive reports on their projects focused on adaptation to and mitigation of climate change.

They have already prioritized the projects in order to address first those that require urgent and immediate attention.  There even already exists a funding mechanism – the UN-created and Global Environment Facility-managed LDC Fund (LDCF) – to provide them with the financial resources they need to implement the projects.

As Jarju pointed out this week at the UN climate talks in Durban, South Africa, all they need now is cash.

Seems straightforward, right?

Unfortunately, winning funding for the LDCs has proven anything but simple, as recent reports released by the Global Environment Facility and reiterated at this week’s COP17 meeting make clear.

Of the $2.5 billion required to fund the adaptation action plans  for all 48 Least Developed Countries, only $454 million has been pledged so far.  Of this frustratingly small amount, only $305 million has been received by the Global Environment Facility, and even less has been distributed for the implementation of projects.

In the broader context of unfulfilled promises for adaptation funding, as part of  $30 billion of “fast start” adaptation and mitigation financing promised by 2012, it is a disappointment, though unsurprising, that not nearly enough funds are being channeled through the LDC Fund.

While donor nations were originally hesitant to channel funds through a nascent, untested channel, the Global Environment Facility (GEF) has solicited advice to improve operations and management of the LDCF, and has taken steps to turn those suggestions into practice.

These alterations have allowed GEF to streamline operations substantially.  For example, the average time between when countries finish their National Adaptation Programmes of Action and when a first project is approved is now about 18 months.

Also, the LDC Group and GEF have learned several critical lessons from the initial experiences implementing NAPA projects, which they are now applying in the process of implementing future projects.

The fund now works.

What’s more, the process of creating NAPAs and prioritizing projects is allowing countries to use funds very effectively. For the most part, countries have chosen as most vital projects on food security and agriculture, water resources and coastal management.

Accordingly, these three areas are now the sectors to which the most implementation project funding has been allocated.

In the words of Bonizella Biagini, of the GEF Secretariat, “Implementation has matched priorities.”

The Least Developed Countries know best what they need to carry out projects that target urgent and immediate vulnerabilities. They even know the precise next steps for continuing the push toward effective adaptation and mitigation.

Jarju, for example, wants to see more projects under the Clean Development Mechanism, which gives poorer countries carbon credit they can sell for clean development projects.

In an event at the climate talks, Jarju asked for technical assistance.  He described how increased funding would help build capacity to perform vulnerability assessments.  Finally, he explained how the completion of all of these projects and ideas simply relies on one missing element:  funding.

Spencer Fields is a researcher in the Climate and Development Lab at Brown University.

Al-Shabaab bans aid agencies in Somalia and raids offices

Islamic group permanently revokes permission for organisations including Unicef and WHO to work in country amid famine crisis

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• Clar Ni Chonghaile in Nairobi
• guardian.co.uk, Monday 28 November 2011 12.21 GMT
• Article history

A Somali girl joins women queuing for a hot meal at a camp. Al-Shabaab has banned several aid agencies. Photograph: Roberto Schmidt/AFP/Getty Images

Efforts to feed 160,000 severely malnourished children in Somalia have been jeopardised after Islamist rebels banned several UN and international aid agencies, storming their offices in a string of co-ordinated raids.

Al-Shabaab militants, who have imposed a harsh form of sharia law in south and central Somalia, announced on Monday they were banning 16 aid agencies from operating in the anarchic country where tens of thousands of people have died from famine since April.

The United Nations Children's Fund (Unicef) said its office in the southern city of Baidoa had been occupied, but that all staff were safe.

Jaya Murthy, interim communications chief for Unicef Somalia, said al-Shabaab's actions could threaten feeding programmes for 160,000 severely malnourished children across the centre and south of the country.

"We are extremely concerned that any interruption to our assistance could result in the death of thousands of children … If our supply pipelines are disrupted, it spells the imminent death of those children," he said.

Somalia, which has had no stable government for two decades, has plunged even deeper into misery this year because of a severe drought and an intensification of fighting as first Kenyan and then Ethiopian forces crossed the border in the past few weeks to tackle the al-Qaida-linked Islamist rebels.

Al-Shabaab, which is fiercely opposed to any western or regional intervention, banned food aid last year in the areas it controls and kicked many relief organisations out, saying aid created dependency. It lifted the ban in July but now appears to have reneged on that.

In a statement, the group said it had "decided to permanently revoke the permissions" of the listed aid agencies to operate inside Somalia, accusing them of being "subversive groups" and "persistently galvanising the local population against the full establishment of the Islamic sharia system".

The list includes the UN high commissioner for refugees (UNHCR), Unicef, the World Health Organisation (WHO), Concern and the Norwegian and Danish refugee councils.

Although famine conditions have eased since aid agencies increased their activities in Somalia, four million people still need food aid, with 250,000 experiencing famine. Aid agencies have warned that the renewed fighting threatens relief operations and could displace even more people.

Pieter Desloovere, WHO Somalia's communications officer, said medicines had been looted from the agency's offices in Baidoa and Wajid on Monday, but that no one was hurt and the premises were not occupied. "This will not affect our operations on the ground. We will remain present," he said.

One aid agency official, who asked not to be named, said the relief groups wanted to respond in a calm and measured way to the al-Shabaab actions to avoid inflaming the situation. He said the attacks and ban were unexpected but not without precedent.

Since Kenyan forces crossed the border last month, al-Shabaab, which includes foreign fighters from countries such as Britain, the US and Pakistan, has increasingly sought to portray itself as the protector of Somalia against foreign intervention.

Ethiopia, which also sent troops into Somalia in 2006 but withdrew in 2009, said last week it had sent forces back into its neighbour for a "brief period". Al-Shabaab is also fighting Somali forces and African Union peacekeepers in the capital, Mogadishu.