webmaster
© Copyright DEHAI-Eritrea OnLine, 1993-2010
All rights reserved
From: Berhane Habtemariam (Berhane.Habtemariam@gmx.de)
Date: Sun Aug 08 2010 - 15:26:45 EDT
U.N. to return to Somalia within two months -envoy
Sun Aug 8, 2010 6:54pm GMT
* Official says beefed-up peace force will improve security
* Mogadishu still risky but U.N. taking cautious approach
By Abdiaziz Hassan
NAIROBI, Aug 8 (Reuters) - The United Nations and foreign missions and
organisations will move back inside Somalia within two months after an
absence of more than 17 years, a senior U.N. official said on Sunday.
Most embassies, foreign charitable organisations and the United Nations
itself have been based in Nairobi because of security concerns in most of
Somalia and near-daily gun battles and mortar attacks in the capital,
Mogadishu.
The U.N. left Somalia in 1993 and most embassies withdrew years earlier.
Augustine Mahiga, the U.N. special representative for the Horn of Africa
country, said a decision to relocate senior staff to Somalia had been taken
by U.N Secretary-General Ban Ki Moon.
The organisation also hoped to establish presences in the breakaway Somali
republic of Somaliland and the semi-autonomous enclave of Puntland, he said.
"We are going to transfer embassies and agencies based in Nairobi to
Somalia, and our targets are three. First is Puntland, second is Somaliland
and third is Mogadishu," Mahiga told a news a conference attended by Somali
Prime Minister Omar Abdirashid Ali Sharmarke at the U.N. headquarters in
Nairobi.
He said the move would take place within 60 days and the U.N. was recruiting
staff in Somalia and Nairobi in preparation.
An increase in the African Union peace force in Somalia to 8,100 would
improve security for the move, he added.
The AU boosted its troop numbers in Somalia after 76 people were killed in
Uganda last month in suicide attacks by the al Qaeda-linked Islamist group
al Shabaab. [ID:nLDE66Q23I]
"Increasing the strength of AMISOM (AU troops) force from 6,200 to the
overall of 8,100 will improve and enhance security to create space for the
deployment of United Nations and the international community," Mahiga said.
The Tanzanian diplomat said the U.N. Support Office for AMISOM is already
completing 14 facilities that could accommodate staff at a safe zone near
Mogadishu airport.
There was still a security risk in Mogadishu, he said, "and we are going to
take much more cautious approach, but the decision to deploy there is being
made".
He said some countries, agencies and partner programmes were already
established in parts of Somalia.
The Somali government has been urging the agency to reconsider its
withdrawal for some time.
Somalia has had no effective central authority since 1991, and its
Transitional Federal Government controls only a small section of the
capital.
It is seen by human rights groups as the worst place in Africa for
humanitarian workers, journalists and activists who have been targeted in
the past three year by militant groups.
Last year, al Shabaab expelled U.N agencies and international organisations
from the southern and central Somalia which it controlled, accusing them of
espionage and looting their premises and seizing computers. (Editing by
Andrew Dobbie)
C Thomson Reuters 2010 All rights reserved
----[This List to be used for Eritrea Related News Only]----