Sudan and Somalia plague AU and UN as crises grow

Calcutta News.Net
Tuesday 28th June, 2011

A critical refugee crisis is unfolding on the border between Kenya and Somalia as thousands flee the drought and war-torn country, overwhelming humanitarian workers in Kenya.

According to the NGO Save the Children, around 1,300 Somalis are fleeing their country everyday in favour of their more stable and prosperous neighbour. As many as 800 of them are children.

Save the Children, reporting from the Dadaab refugee camp, says that the monthly figure has doubled in the past year as Somalia sinks deeper into conflict, with African Union troops fighting to take back control of parts of the capital from rebels.

Some of the new arrivals in the refugee camp have walked for over a month, according to aid workers, leaving them malnourished, dehydrated and severely exhausted.

The unfolding humanitarian crisis has been compounded by a drought in Somalia that has pushed the price of basic food goods beyond the reach of the great majority, while many subsistence farmers are no longer able to live off the land.

According to the humanitarian agency, Medecins Sans Frontieres, the situation in the camp is becoming untenable, with many living in makeshift shelters and thousands of children in need of medical attention.

Drought conditions in Somalia are not forecast to abate for several more months, forcing aid workers to prepare for an ever growing stream of refugees from one of the worst failed states in Africa.

The United Nations, eager to prevent a war between North and South Sudan developing into a similarly desperate legacy, has meanwhile announced that it is sending peace keepers into the region.

The UN Security Council on Monday voted in favour of sending 4,200 peacekeepers to Abyei, a small territory on the border between Sudan and the soon-to-be fully independent South Sudan. The two countries have been exchanging border fire for weeks, with Abyei inhabiting the focus of tensions.

Another all out civil war between Sudan and South Sudan could easily turn two of Africa’s largest countries into another desperately poor and unstable territory like Somalia, which has had a functioning government for over a decade.

Many of the pirates that wreak havoc in the northern Indian Ocean are based out of Somalia, because there is no government to enforce the law. A similar situation in Sudan, also on the east coast of Africa, would severely disrupt international trade.

Have your say on this story