Aid Workers Flee Somalia
Sad but not surprising news from Somalia: as the kidnapping and murder of foreign aid workers continues to escalate, the poor and hungry people they went to help now face a growing humanitarian crisis. Via Africa News Search:
MOGADISHU, 07/28- By December this year, aid agencies estimate that the number of displaced and hungry people in need of life-saving aid in Somalia will swell to 3.5 million-nearly half the country`s population. Yet, as drought and conflict conspire to worsen the crisis, the humanitarian space to deliver food and other essential assistance in this conflict zone has all but vanished.
Over the past few months, even this has become almost impossible to do. This year alone 20 aid workers, including foreigners, have been killed. Seventeen aid workers were freed after being kidnapped for ransom while 13 more are still in captivity.
All international aid workers and UN staff have been forced out by continuous fighting between Islamic insurgent groups and forces of the Transitional Federal Government (TFG) backed by Ethiopian troops. Both sides accuse each other of attacks on aid workers and vow to protect them. Added to this are professional kidnapping rings, which have been encouraged by the large ransoms paid by foreigners to release ships taken by pirates.
The UN agencies and nine internationalit organisations still maintain a presence in Mogadishu, but they rely exclusively on local staff. Musse told IPS over the phone from Mogadishu that Somali workers, too, are now being targeted and aid delivery has completely stalled.
This is what happens when Western countries and NGOs send humanitarian aid and unarmed aid workers to distribute it, and then refuse to defend their citizens when they are kidnapped or attacked. The idea that those who would do good must be unprotected and at the mercy of criminal gangs and insurgent militias leads not only to personal tragedies among the victimized aid workers, but to large-scale disasters among the affected populations who are dependent on the foreign aid.
Military action to protect aid workers need not involve massive troop movements and invasions, and it need not result in massive slaughter to be effective. The French commando raid on the hijacked cargo ship Le Ponant earlier this year could serve as a model for future operations, but most countries have been reluctant to risk confrontation. Rescuing hostages and pursuing kidnappers is not risk-free, it could go wrong and result in the death of the innocent and the escape of the guilty. But if kidnappers and pirates were forced to take the possibility of being pursued by helicopter gunships into account every time they eyed a vulnerable food shipment or NGO employee, they might find a more productive line of work. And while limited action of this type won’t end the wars and insurgencies that plague countries like Somalia, they might be able to offer the hungry and dispossessed a chance to take advantage of the offered aid and live to see a hopefully better day.
