Ending the year on a sad note: lost two more colleagues.

2007 was bad. 2008 was worse. 2009 topped them all. And the last week of the year was no exception to a very disturbing trend: the aid community lost two colleagues again. Ali Farah Amey was shot dead in Beledweyn (Somalia) and a 24 year national UN staff member was killed in a suicide bombing in Kandahar, Afghanistan.

Aidworkers become part of a free-for-all turkey shoot. I can't put it more blunt than that.

In a post reminding everyone on the plight of his two colleagues taken hostage in Darfur, fellow blogger Paul Conneally states:

There is another aspect which niggles slightly and that is the deafening silence that generally meets the news of aid workers being killed or taken hostage. There is not only a relative silence from governments, media or the public but even from the humanitarian sector itself. Compare the death in Afghanistan of aid workers to that of soldiers who, by and large, are armed to the teeth and sent to Afghanistan to kill or be killed. I don't dispute military interventions - not my business - but it is quiet incredible that the media is so keen to eulogize the military as 'fallen heroes' and ignore those who risk (and give) their lives desperately trying to make a difference on the human level without resorting to state of the art munitions and military occupation.

But I want to make it even more black and white: We, the aid community are left clueless what to do with this increased risk we face. The only thing we seem to be doing is piling up those sandbags even higher. Buying more bomb-blast film, bullet-proof jackets and mine-resistant Kevlar layers for our vehicles. Measures which should be taken, but proven to be insufficient.

I will make a prediction for 2010: there will be no end to the killing of aidworkers. And unless the aid community drastically changes its approach toward the risks now inherent to aidwork, one year from now, we will be looking back at the year 2010 and say "This was a bad year....".

My suggestions to any aid organisation who is concerned about security for their staff:

1. Make it compulsive for all aid staff to follow a two-three days security awareness course. The course is to be re-done, as a refresher, every two years.
2. Everyone going into high risk area, should get a separate and customized security briefing.
3. Every agency and NGO should comply with the MOSS (Minimum Operational Security Standards), and ensure the MOSS guidelines are strictly adhered to. MOSS compliance is to be verified by an independent external team.
4. Security compliance should become part of the normal audit cycle. Complaints about security deficiencies should be handled with the same priority as theft, harassment or embezzlement.
   
5. Every agency and NGO should employ a "Dirty Harry" team, with one and only one task: to try and bypass the security systems in order to expose deficiencies.
6. And most importantly: as you can not reduce the thread, but can only decrease the risk to your staff members: reduce the amount of people we employ in security-risky areas. Resist donor pressure and the aidwork-inherent-testosterone-craze by wanting to rush into any emergency operation, without thinking "are we really needed there?".

Picture discovered via War and Peace

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Somalia: A way of life lost

When we hear "climate change", we think of melting polar ice, raising sea levels. At best, we might imagine violent hurricanes in South Asia.

We don't often consider how changing weather patterns affect the poorest first. We, the lucky ones, have a buffer. We are more resilient, have alternative livelihoods. The majority of people on this planet don't.

For over one billion people, a few degrees more will mean the difference between life or death. Survival of a tribe or starvation.

I was looking for a first hand recount, and asked Jane Barrett to write up something from her last visit to Somalia. Jane is a press officer at Oxfam Novib for Somalia, Niger and Burundi. During a recent field visit in Somaliland, she was met warm and generously by the communities. People were clearly eager to tell their stories to someone who wanted to listen.

Here is a story Jane wrote after meeting SalebanYussuf Noor, a grandfather and probably the last of his pastoral generation:

Somalia: A way of life lost

In Burcao, Somaliland we visited a village called Ununley. Here, in houses spread on either side of the road, live pastoralist families. When the village gathers to meet us, providing an occasion to drink tea and chew khaat, there is a distinct majority of elderly and women. Indeed, many men have gone with their sheep and goats to search for water. The latest information, a village elder tells us, is that it has rained by the Ethiopian border.

It will be busy, as many herders have heard the same. Having missed several seasonal rains, the herders have to go further and further in search of water and vegetation for their animals. Along the way, many livestock will be lost to the drought.

SalebanYussuf Noor is 75. He is one of the oldest in the village and was one of its founding members at age ten. In his younger years, his family was wealthy. “When I was young, my family was most generous. I ran a tea shop and to feed people I slaughtered my goats,” he says.

Then, the village was growing. Saleban himself owned 500 sheep and goats. Now his family of 11 own just 30. In the last ten years, climate change has endangered the pastoralist way of life that has existed for centuries in Somalia. The last four years the drought has intensified, with the most recent summer the worst. “Every place they, the herders, go they lose some cattle.”

Saleban is very concerned about what the future holds for the younger generation of the village: “The young people who are supposed to continue to build the village are leaving to places such as Lybia, the Sahara and Europe to find work and build a family. This changing weather is very bad. The people living here used to be wealthy, now they are very poor.”

He doesn’t quite know how to deal with the impact it has had on himself and his village. “We are proud. We used to live lavishly, we don’t know how to help, it sounds like begging,” Saleban said.

Saleban’s grandson has been sitting nearby throughout our conversation, drawing patterns in the sand. I ask him what he wants to be when he grows up. “Teacher” he says shyly. Then I ask his friends who are sitting around us, “Teacher.” “Doctor.” “Teacher.” “Teacher.” “Big man who can work in the factory.” Not one of them wants to be a herder like their fathers. That outlook is too bleak.

Check Oxfam's climate change blog

Picture courtesy Jane Barrett/Oxfam

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News Feed: Somalia Fighting

News feed courtesy Humanitarian News.
Create your own RSS feed based on your search criteria for the latest humanitarian news.

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Worrying events...

There is always something going on, somewhere in the world, that keeps us, aidworkers, busy. Here is what is on our mind these days:

• 8,000 Somalis are displaced in one day of fighting around Mogadishu (Full)
• A rebellion seems to be on the raise in Nigeria (Full) and Niger (Full)
• Relief agencies still don't have full access to the displaced civilians after the Tamil was defeated in Sri Lanka. (Full)
• Southern Sudan seems to fall back into violence (Full)
• ...while in Darfur, the war is flaring up again (Full)
• Pakistan's offensive in the Swat valley displaced 2.3 million people, with aid agencies scrambling to cope. (Full)
  

Items discovered via International Aid Workers Today and AidNews.

Picture courtesy Reuters

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Picture of the day: Somalia on the run again

Hundreds of families are still fleeing the Somali capital, Mogadishu, despite relative calm in the past week following intense fighting between insurgents and government troops.

They are joining hundreds of thousands of internally displaced persons (IDPs) in camps on the outskirts of the city and in safer neighbourhoods inside Mogadishu. (Full)

More Pictures of the Day on The Road

Picture courtesy Hassan Mahamud Ahmed/IRIN

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UN wants cartoonist for Somalia

The UN Development Programme is looking for a cartoonist in Somalia. No kidding. The Terms of Reference specify the details..

The background:

Somalia faces significant challenges in achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). (...)

To address this issue, and bearing in mind the low literacy levels in Somalia, UNDP Somalia, through the Human Development and Economics Unit, is seeking a consultant to produce cartoon designs for an MDG comic as well as two cartoon characters (male and female).

The objective of this comic would be to educate local Somalis throughout the country (the civil society in rural and urban areas, and nomads); private sector; educational institutions, and local administrations) on what exactly the MDGs are.

It also specifies what exactly they want:

1. Two cartoon characters (one male and one female).
2. Cartoon to be included in a UNDP Somalia comic depicting correct, neutral and culturally sensitive messages on MDGs that illustrates what MDGs are, how each one may be attained, and who is responsible for attaining them.
(It should be..) Humorous where possible.

It is not just for anyone. You must have, amongst others, the following competencies:

- Have more than 7 years’ experience in design, illustrations and desktop publishing.
- Possess at least 5 years’ experience of working in the context of Somalia, with proof of dissemination of products.

So.. what are you all waiting for? Apply!

Maybe the next step is a cartoonist to educate the Somalia pirates that taking oil tankers is a "no-no"?

Cartoon courtesy Cartoonstock.

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Acute hunger spots in the world

Myanmar faces food shortages in many parts of the country, largely because of last year's cyclone Nargis destroyed most of the delta's harvest and a rat infestation wiped out most of the remaining crops.
A total of 2 million acres (800,000 hectares) of rice paddy were submerged saltwater waves and 85 percent of seed stocks were destroyed. A shortage of labor - 130,000 were left dead after Nargis - higher fertilizer prices and lower rice prices have dissuaded delta farmers from planting, causing about 185,000 tons of emergency food aid needed this year. (Full)

There is a general alert going out for an upcoming wave of hunger due to a drought in the Horn of Africa:

In Uganda's Karamoja region 970,000 people are heading towards starvation. The Government declared the whole region as an emergency area and said "food must [quickly] be distributed to this area to avert this problem." Drought conditions will cause conditions unlikely to improve before October when the next harvest is due. (Full)

The same regional drought also hit Kenya hard. In the South-eastern regions, the third consecutive bad crop will force 3.2 million people to resort to food aid. (Full)

Since August last year, WFP, the UN's main food assistance agency, has lost 4 staff in Somalia due to security incidents. Last week they said if the situation does not improve, they will be forced to cut their food aid, which will affect 2.5 million people. (Full)

In Zimbabwe, the hunger figures are even worse. The prolonged political turmoil has turned Africa's former breadbasket into one of the continent's poorest countries. Currently 4.5 million Zimbabweans are fully dependent on food aid, a figure expected to raise to 6 million in the next month.
Due to lack of donor funding, WFP has been forced to cut core monthly maize rations from 10kg -already 2kg below the recommended ration- to 5kg a month for adults. That is just about 600 calories a day. (Full)

News discovered via NewsFeeds and AidNews.

Picture courtesy James Akena (WFP)

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Did we forget these humanitarian crisis?

With the international (press) spotlights on Gaza, one would forget these -ongoing- humanitarian hotspots:

Sri Lanka:
The Red Cross appealed to both the Tamil Tigers and the government to allow what they estimated at 250,000 people trapped in the northern war zone to flee to safety.
"People are being caught in the crossfire, hospitals and ambulances have been hit by shelling and several aid workers have been injured while evacuating the wounded," according to the ICRC.
"It's high time to take decisive action and stop further bloodshed," he said, warning there could be "countless victims" if nothing is done.
The government has called on civilians to gather in a small "safe zone" on the edge of rebel territory, but a health official said at least 300 civilians were wounded and scores feared killed by army artillery shells fired into the zone. (Full)

Somalia:
The United Nations will be forced to end food distribution in Somalia unless armed groups stop attacking U.N. staff, the World Food Programme (WFP) said.
Humanitarian workers have been targeted during a two-year-old rebellion by Islamist insurgents that has killed more than 16,000 civilians and uprooted one million others. Four WFP staff have been killed since August last year. (Full)

Kenya and Horn of Africa:
Large areas of Kenya and the Horn of Africa are facing "an exceptional humanitarian crisis" that requires "urgent food assistance and other interventions to combat high malnutrition levels", according to the IFRC's appeal.
The combination of high world food prices and a crippling drought is endangering as many as 20 million people in both rural and urban communities. (Full)

Sudan:
Clashes in Southern Sudan's Warrap state have left 41 people dead and displaced hundreds of others from their homes in the past two months. (Full)
Sudan's government accused Darfur rebels of planning to launch attacks if President Omar Hassan al-Bashir is indicted for war crimes and said that would bring a new round of bloodshed. (Full)

Philippines:
Flooding in some parts of Mindanao has exacerbated the humanitarian situation on the island after nearly five months of deadly fighting between government troops and the separatist Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF). Floods affected 40,000 people. More than 300,000 people remain displaced in the conflict-affected areas, many of them living in shelters or with relatives outside government-designated evacuation sites. (Full)


News discovered via AidNews

Picture courtesy Finbarr O'Reilly (Reuters)

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11 million people on the run in Central and East Africa alone

A sad start-of-year balance: violence, wars, political turmoil and natural disasters forced 11 million people in Central and East Africa out of their homes.

9.1 million became refugees within their own country ("internally displaced persons (IDPs) in humanitarian lingo). Half the IDPs 4,576,250 are in Sudan. 2,700,000 of them in the war-torn Darfur region.

1.8 million people were forced to seek haven outside their homelands, most of them hosted by Chad, Tanzania and Kenya.

Displacement in the region is triggered mainly by armed conflicts and natural disasters such as floods and drought. Frequently, several of these hit a country at the same time, creating complex humanitarian emergencies. Scarcity of resources, limited access to land and inconclusive peace and reconciliation processes create multiple challenges blocking the return home.

Humanitarian response to both acute and long-term displacement is often hampered by lack of access to the affected people due to ongoing conflict and persistent high insecurity including the targeting of humanitarian workers. (Full)

There are a total of 26 million internally displaced people throughout the world, and approximately 13.9 million refugees are forced to live in a country other than their own. (Full)

Picture courtesy ABCNews

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Two colleagues killed in Somalia this week.

On January 6th, three masked gunmen shot and killed 44-year-old Somali national Ibrahim Hussein Duale, while he was monitoring school feeding in a WFP-supported school in Yubsan village six kilometres from the Gedo region capital of Garbahare. Witnesses say the gunmen approached him while he was seated, ordered him to stand up and then shot him.

Ibrahim leaves a wife and five children. He joined the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) in 2006 as a food monitor in Gedo region, which borders on Kenya and Ethiopia. (Full)

Today, another colleague, Mohamud Omar Moallim, was shot by unidentified gunmen while distributing food to displaced people at Daynile, 6 miles northwest of Mogadishu.

The gunmen put Mohamud's body in a WFP vehicle and drove away, then pushed the corpse from the vehicle and drove on.

Mohamud joined WFP in 1993 and worked until 1995 as a logistics assistant. He rejoined the agency in May 2006 as a food monitor. He was abducted in September 2008 for 16 hours outside Mogadishu. He leaves two wives and 11 children.

In Somalia alone, four of our staff member were killed since August 2008 and another five WFP-contracted transport staff were killed since January 2008. (Full)

It is clear more and more humanitarians are being targeted, either by bandits or terrorists. Malicious acts include robbery, carjacking, hijacking, physical attacks and plain murder. The amount of victims amongst aidworkers reached record heights in 2007, a sad record broken only by the 2008 figures.

As a reference, Patronus Analytical is keeping track of security in the humanitarian world and in International Aidworkers Today I clip news articles about aidwork, and aidworkers.

Pictures courtesy WFP

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MSF's Top Ten Humanitarian Crisis

At the end of the year, MSF (Doctors Without Borders) used to publish their "top 10 under-reported crisis". Now, their hit list is called plainly "Top 10 Humanitarian Crisis".

No "under-reporting" this year. Guess there were sufficient press spotlights turned to the humanitarian aspect of any crisis:

Myanmar's cyclone emergency was an excellent opportunity for the West to wedge some cracks in the Generals' totalitarian regime and the press was present.

Zimbabwe got its fair share due to the West's tendency to collectively sideline 'no-longer-wanted' leaders from African countries. And the press was present.

Somalia got floodlights due to the piracy plague. Sexy subject, and the press was present.

I still think a full blown crisis was avoided in DRC when the media jumped onto the plane direction Goma real fast. Fast enough for the different warring parties to sit around the table and go chest-thumping. A million people affected by the crisis.

So no "under-reporting" this year. MSF still wanted their top 10. And no surprises as to who got listed. Some of them have been in there for years: Somalia, Ethiopia, DRC, Pakistan, Zimbabwe, Sudan and Iraq. With a special emphasis for TBC/HIV co-infection and malnutrition. (Full)

Picture courtesy Sven Torfinn (MSF)

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Picture of the day: Mogadishu - City of Fear

Somalia turns from bad to worse. Watch this slide show.

More Pictures of the Day on The Road.

Picture courtesy Kuni Takahashi

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News: Who took my oil tanker?

"I am 42 years old and have nine children. I am a boss with boats operating in the Gulf of Aden and the Indian Ocean.", starts the story of Asad 'Booyah' Abdulahi, describing himself as a "pirate boss", living in a small Somali fishing village.

"I finished high school and wanted to go to university but there was no money. So I became a fisherman in Eyl in Puntland like my father, even though I still dreamed of working for a company. That never happened as the Somali government was destroyed [in 1991] and the country became unstable."

"At sea foreign fishing vessels often confronted us. Some had no licence, others had permission from the Puntland authorities but did not want us there to compete. They would destroy our boats and force us to flee for our lives."

"I started to hijack these fishing boats in 1998. I did not have any special training but was not afraid. For our first captured ship we got $300,000. With the money we bought AK-47s and small speedboats. I don't know exactly how many ships I have captured since then but I think it is about 60. Sometimes when we are going to hijack a ship we face rough winds, and some of us get sick and some die."

"We consider ourselves heroes running away from poverty", he added. (Full)

These guys, with no education, but a lot of guts, a few hundred dollars worth of weapons and a dinghy captured over 60 ships, as big as one of the world's largest oil tanker.

Is this the story of the modern world's Robin Hood?

Photograph: Veronique de Viguerie/Getty Images

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News: NATO escorts food aid shipments to Somalia

I reported before about the logistical challenges to bring humanitarian aid to Somalia.

Since June 2005, when a vessel carrying food aid to Somalia for the World Food Programme (WFP) was hijacked, the issue of piracy in the Golf of Aden got international attention.
The hijackers demanded a ransom for the release of the ship, its crew and cargo. The ship was released after being held for 100 days. Following that incident other ships -commercial vessels, yachts and cruiseliners- have been under attack or were were hijacked. (More). Even today a Saudi oil tanker got hijacked by Somali pirates.

As the sea is one of the only means to have humanitarian aid reach Somalia, there is now no other alternative then to have NATO vessels escorting the relief shipments:



More posts on The Road about food aid, Somalia and WFP

Video courtesy WFP

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News: Situation worsens for Somali children

Few foreign governments have shown much interest in trying to end Somalia’s woes. Diplomats charged with trying to do so are frustrated and depressed.

Meanwhile the suffering is mounting. The UN reckons 3.2m Somalis now survive on food aid. (Full)



More posts on The Road about Somalia, Africa and WFP

Video courtesy Worldfocus

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News: UN compound bombed in Somalia

Five suicide car bombs rocked a presidential palace, government security post, a United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) office and an Ethiopian consular unit in two regions of northern Somalia today.

Several buildings were leveled by the attacks, which happened within a span of half an hour.

At least two people were killed and six seriously wounded in the attack of the United Nations office in Hargeisa, long considered as the safest city in Somalia. (Full)

The UNDP compound was hit by an explosion caused by a vehicle that had forced its way into the compound at approximately 10 a.m. local time.

“At present, we can confirm that two national UN staff have been killed, while two others were critically injured and medically evacuated to Djibouti,” UN spokesperson Marie Okabe said. Full)

The attack came five years after the attack of the UN compound in Baghdad and ten months after the bombing of the UN offices in Algiers.

Investigations after both bombings showed significant short comings in the UN security apparatus. Follow-up actions included loads of finger pointing and scape goating but failed to deliver any noticeable differences for humanitarian workers, UN or not UN.

Status Oct 5th, 31 aid workers have been killed in Afghanistan, 32 killed in Somalia and 11 in Darfur. (Full). Since then 2 more aid workers were killed in Somalia, and one was shot dead in Afghanistan.

2008 is heading to set a sad record.

More posts on The Road about being an aidworker, Somalia and terrorism


Video discovered via Humanitarian Relief

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News: Sophie - The Face of Poverty

Hargeisa, 1,500km north of Mogadishu, is home to thousands of displaced people from south-central Somalia. Sophie, 27, came to the city with her husband and three children, aged between 18 months and eight years, but her 10-year-old son was lost on the journey.
She and other women were robbed and raped along the way. She spoke about her plight:

"We used to live in north Mogadishu. We had a shop which was run by my husband and I had a stall in the market. We were not rich but we had enough to feed our family.

"The area got to the point where no one was safe and looting and rape became normal. Many houses were destroyed. One night, our neighbour's house was totally destroyed and no one survived. In the blink of an eye the entire family was dead.

"Our house was partially destroyed but we escaped unhurt. That morning we decided to leave with other families and take our children to some place safe.

"The journey was long; it took more than nine days. I lost my boy and we were robbed of everything we had. The bandits took us away from the main road and into the bush. They told the men to lie down and then took the women they thought looked good and young and raped us; five other women and myself. Our husbands heard our cries but could do nothing. They were being held at gunpoint.

"By the time we reached Hargeisa we had nothing. The people here [in Hargeisa] have been very kind. In the camp the residents let us share their dwellings. (Full)


More posts on The Road about Somalia, refugees and poverty,

Reprinted with courtesy of IRIN
Picture courtesy Derk Segaar (IRIN)

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News: 1 million people fled Somalia in 2008 alone

Over 1 million people fled Somalia in 2008. 2.6 million Somalis - 35% of the population - now need humanitarian assistance, while one in six children under the age of five is malnourished. (Full)

More on The Road about Somalia, aid work and Somalia and humanitarian issues

Discovered via Humanitarian Relief and AidBlogs

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News: The Forgotten Wars...

Most people in the UK are unaware of major conflict zones around the world, according to a new survey by the British Red Cross.

The survey was carried out to discover how much the British public knows about armed conflicts ahead of the Red Cross’ Civilians and Conflict Month, which launched this week.

Respondents were able to name Afghanistan and Iraq as war zones, most probably because that's where British military are stations.

However less than one per cent identified the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), where an estimated 5.4 million people have died as a result of the country’s long-running conflict.

Less than one per cent of respondents were able to identify countries such as Sudan, Somalia, and Central African Republic.

Almost one in five (18 per cent) could not name five countries experiencing conflict. (Full)

I would add that in the case of Chad and DRC, the media is partially to blame as the crisis in those countries hardly ever gets the spotlights. Which is not the case for Somalia, and certainly not for Sudan.

If you look at all the campaigning which has been done around Sudan and Darfur, one would then ask, what it really takes to ensure the forgotten wars are brought back into the spotlight? Reuters Alertnet runs a survey on this topic.

Via The Other World News

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News: Ugandan UN Peace Keepers accused of selling arms in Somalia

A report by the UN monitoring group on the Somali arms embargo says Ugandan peacekeepers in Somalia have been selling arms to insurgents.

It cites one incident in which a group of Ugandan soldiers allegedly received $80,000 for a transaction. Some peacekeepers are accused of setting up an arms trading network through translators. The soldiers received a wish-list of weapons from arms dealers and the weapons were then supplied from stores of equipment seized from insurgents. The monitoring group says the weapons find their way back to the insurgent group they were captured from in the first place.

The Ugandan army has already dismissed the accusations as "absolutely ridiculous." (Full)


More posts on The Road about UN Peace Keeping operations.

Source: International Aidworkers Today
Picture courtesy Gambia News Community

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