quinta-feira, 7 de julho de 2011

The full story ... Starving Muslim seek help

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ELEANOR HALL: As millions of people in East Africa face famine, Islamist militants in Somalia have decided to allow international agencies in to help. Al Shabaab ordered relief workers out in 2009 accusing them of undermining local farmers and being anti-Muslim.

But International aid groups are now mobilising to get in in time to help save the lives of the many vulnerable children.

Meredith Griffiths has our report.

MEREDITH GRIFFITHS: In Somalia, thousands of people are on the move, looking for food and water. Amina Adaim walked for a week to reach a refugee camp south of Mogadishu.

AMINA ADAIM (translation): We are struggling to survive, most of our animals have died because of the drought. I was separated from my sons, I have found my way to this camp in order to get help.

MEREDITH GRIFFITHS: Aliyow Kus is staying in a ruined church in the city.

ALIYOW KUS (translation): We have undergone about three years of drought, there is not enough food and water. We have been facing dry weather for a long period of time. There is no water for the plants and the little livestock we had is already gone. The people are starting to die from starvation.

MEREDITH GRIFFITHS: Five hundred Somalis are known to have died already, though the aid group Oxfam says the actual number is likely to be higher.

Some of the Mogadishu refugee camps are run by Al Shabaab, an Islamist rebel group in control of large swathes of south and central Somalia. It's now acknowledged it needs help.

A spokesman, Ali Mohamud Rage, has asked international aid groups, once banned, to return.

ALI MOHAMUD RAGE (translation): Anyone who is a Muslim who intends to help the Muslim people or even a non-Muslim who claims to be coming to aid of us hungry and drought-stricken people will need to contact the committee we have established for this task. They will be assisted in the facilitation of their operations.

MEREDITH GRIFFITHS: The UN's humanitarian coordinator for Somalia, Mark Bowden, says aid agencies will need security guarantees for their staff.

MARK BOWDEN: In the past I think that they've honoured commitments and they provided security for those agencies that are working there. I hope that they also recognise that humanitarian agencies are going in only with a concern to meet needs of the population and to act in genuine humanitarian way and uphold humanitarian principles of neutrality, impartiality and independence.

MEREDITH GRIFFITHS: The crisis is spilling over into Kenya. At the Dadaab refugee camp, more than 1000 people are arriving every day. Many are children who've been separated from their parents during the journey or were orphaned in Somalia's conflicts, like Abdi Salaam and his sister.

ABDI SALAAM (translation): It's better here because back in Somalia there was war. We have no relatives there so we fled here. We now have a foster mother to look after us.

MEREDITH GRIFFITHS: This man's one-year-old son is seriously ill.

FATHER (translation): We need food, water, medicine, shelter and everything else that a human being needs. We are never going back to Somalia.

MEREDITH GRIFFITHS: One of the camp's doctors, Edward Chegay, says the world must do more to help.

EDWARD CHEGAY: It is a great area of need and we should all make an effort to make a difference to the lives of these children. They really don't even know what's happening in their lives right now and they absolutely need our help. One refugee without hope is too many.

MEREDITH GRIFFITHS: The drought is also affecting Ethiopia, Uganda and Djibouti. Aid agencies have issued an urgent appeal for funds.

Daryl Ainsworth from the aid group RedR Australia says donations from the public will make a difference.

DARYL AINSWORTH: In the Somalia region we've got over 140 distribution points and they've been there for quite a while and the supply of them and the re-supply of them has been ongoing for a number of years.

So I think as long as World Food Program can get the food that - I think that's the crux of it all - can get the food, the transport structure is in place, the dispatch structure is in place and I think things will go along better than a lot of people will imagine.

MEREDITH GRIFFITHS: He leaves for Ethiopia tonight to help the UN get food to people as soon as possible.

ELEANOR HALL: Meredith Griffiths reporting.

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