From: Berhane Habtemariam (Berhane.Habtemariam@gmx.de)
Date: Sat Apr 04 2009 - 06:22:41 EST
Somali govt orders all aid agencies to register
Sat Apr 4, 2009 11:08am GMT
* Govt says it responsible for aid workers' safety
* Wants to know operational details in advance
* Gunmen kill at least two at mosque in central town
By Ibrahim Mohamed and Abdi Sheikh
MOGADISHU, April 4 (Reuters) - Somalia's prime minister has ordered all aid
agencies working in the lawless Horn of Africa nation to register with the
new government for their own safety.
The country is suffering one of the world's worst humanitarian catastrophes.
A two-year Islamist rebellion has killed more than 16,000 civilians, driven
another 1 million from their homes and left about 3 million dependent on
food aid.
Complicating operations for aid workers, large parts of south and central
Somalia are under the control of hardline al Shabaab insurgents and allied
Islamist fighters.
Al Shabaab, which Washington accuses of close ties to al Qaeda, asked
international humanitarian organisations last week to register to carry out
operations in its territory.
But a spokesman for Prime Minister Omar Abdirashid Ali Sharmarke said late
on Friday that no aid groups would be allowed to work in the capital
Mogadishu or anywhere else without getting the government's approval first.
"From now on, we will not let any aid agency carry out activities without
notifying the government. We want to know what sort of help they are giving
people and where," the spokesman, Abdukadir Mohamud Wallayo, told reporters.
"The country has now a functioning government. If aid workers are harmed,
the Somali government will be held responsible."
President Sheikh Sharif Ahmed, a former Islamist rebel, was elected by
lawmakers at U.N.-led talks earlier this year.
DAUNTING TASK
He and Sharmarke now face the daunting task of trying to establish a new
administration and national security force, while cajoling several disparate
guerrilla factions to back their efforts in the interests of peace.
A senior humanitarian source in neighbouring Kenya said the new order should
not pose much of a problem to operations.
"What we need is for all parties in Somalia to be committed to the safe and
efficient delivery of the humanitarian supplies that are so badly needed by
so many people," the source said.
Unidentified gunmen have killed and abducted several local aid workers in
recent months, sharply curtailing the ability of relief groups to help
desperate Somali communities uprooted by fighting and plagued by drought and
disease.
Doctors say acute diarrhoea has killed 35 people, mostly children, in the
last week west of Mogadishu.
In the latest violence, at least two worshippers died and several others
were wounded when heavily armed attackers targeted a mosque late on Friday
in the central town of Galkayo.
"Three masked men stood at the door and indiscriminately opened fire. Then
they escaped and vanished," Aweys Ali Said, Galkayo's vice chairman, told
Reuters by telephone.
"I am sure this evil act was planned somewhere else. Our citizens here are
not trained and indoctrinated to kill people in mosques. We are
investigating the matter." (Additional reporting and writing by Daniel
Wallis in Nairobi; Editing by Charles Dick)
C Thomson Reuters 2009 All rights reserved
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