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Somalia famine aid stolen, UN investigating

Published:Wednesday | August 17, 2011 | 12:00 AM
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Somali children from southern Somalia receive cooked food in Mogadishu, Somalia, on Monday. The World Food Programme said Saturday that it is expanding its food distribution efforts in famine-struck Somalia, where the UN estimates that only 20 per cent of people needing aid are getting it.
Somali children from southern Somalia receive cooked food in Mogadishu, Somalia, on Monday. The World Food Programme said Saturday that it is expanding its food distribution efforts in famine-struck Somalia, where the UN estimates that only 20 per cent of people needing aid are getting it.
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MOGADISHU (AP):

Thousands of sacks of food aid meant for Somalia's famine victims have been stolen and are being sold at markets in the same neighbourhoods where skeletal children in filthy refugee camps can't find enough to eat, an Associated Press investigation has found.

The UN's World Food Programme for the first time acknowledged it has been investigating food theft in Somalia for two months. The WFP said that the "scale and intensity" of the famine crisis does not allow for a suspension of assistance, saying that doing so would lead to "many unnecessary deaths".

And the aid is not even safe once it has been distributed to families huddled in the makeshift camps popping up around the capital. Families at the large, government-run Badbado camp, where several aid groups have been distributing food, said they were often forced to hand back aid after journalists had taken photos of them with it.

Ali Said Nur said he received two sacks of maize twice, but each time was forced to give one to the camp leader.

"You don't have a choice. You have to simply give without an argument to be able to stay here," he said.

The UN says more than 3.2 million Somalis, nearly half the population, need food aid after a severe drought that has been complicated by Somalia's long-running war. More than 450,000 Somalis live in famine zones controlled by al-Qaida-linked militants, where aid is difficult to deliver. The US says 29,000 Somali children under the age of five already have died.