26 Mar 2008 - The humanitarian crisis in Somalia is deteriorating dramatically while access to people in need continues to decrease, 39 aid organizations, including the IRC, warned today in a statement issued on the eve of a UN Security Council discussion of Somalia.
Over the last six months 360,000 people have been newly displaced in Somalia and an additional half a million people are reliant on humanitarian assistance, the aid groups said. There are now more than one million internally displaced people in Somalia while intense conflict in Mogadishu continues to force an average of 20,000 people from their homes each month. This, combined with record high food prices, hyperinflation and drought in large parts of the country is leaving communities struggling to survive, the statement says. Meanwhile, extreme water and food shortages are expected to worsen if seasonal rains fail, as is predicted.
The agencies reported that Somali and international aid agencies are unable to respond adequately to the crisis and that attacks on, and killings of, aid workers, the looting of relief supplies, and a lack of respect for international law by all parties to the conflict have left two million Somalis in need of basic humanitarian assistance.
The 39 organizations called on the international community and all parties to the conflict to urgently focus their attention on the humanitarian crisis, to ensure access for humanitarian supplies and to ensure the safety of civilians. The groups also noted that the humanitarian crisis will only deepen in the absence of a political solution to Somalia’s problems.
UN Security Council members will meet this to week consider a report on Somalia issued by Secretary General Ban Ki-moon on March 21.
"We must seize, without delay, the strategic moment, and move decisively to build the foundations for durable peace and stability in Somalia," the secretary-general said in the report.
Last month, the UN warned that Somalia was the world's "forgotten crisis."
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