By Moyiga Nduru
NAIROBI, Apr 1 1998 (IPS)

The United Nations has expressed concern over renewed fighting in Somalia, saying this will affect relief work and impede progress towards national reconciliation.

The United Nations Representative in Somalia, Dominic Langenbacher, said inter-clan clashes in the city of Kismayo and a rise in banditry and insecurity in the capital, Mogadishu, would only compound the suffering of the Somali people.

“In the city of Kismayo, ongoing inter-clan hostilities, with over 100 reported casualties, are threatening the safe delivery of urgently needed humanitarian emergency supplies and the safety of UN staff who are involved in their distribution in the Juba Valley,” he said in a statement to IPS on Wednesday.

Aid workers operating in Kismayo, a port city near the Kenya border, confirmed Wednesday that fierce fighting between rival clans — firing heavy machine-guns and anti-tank rockets — had left 33 people dead and more than 100 wounded this week.

They said the clashes, over control of the port city, pitted the forces of Marehan led by General Omar Haji Mohamed, and those of the Majerten led by General Mohamed Said Hirsi “Morgan”. Both sides have claimed victory.

Langenbacher has called upon the factional and clan leaders in the region to resolve their differences by peaceful means. Otherwise, he said, “the hostilities and the theft of humanitarian supplies (will) threaten the health and the lives of innocent civilians and prevent the United Nations from assisting those most at risk.”

The UN operates in the south of Somalia — Middle and Lower Juba, Lower Shabelle, Gedo, Bay and Bakool districts — where flooding has severely affected 657,000 people.

The Nairobi-based “Somalia Inter-Agency Flood Response” has warned that the situation in the region — where the unusually heavy rains, attributed to the El Nino effect, which began in mid- October — has reached a critical stage.

“The upcoming rainy season — late March to May — could not only destroy the little recovery that has been achieved in the sectors of agriculture and infrastructure, but it could also put people’s lives again at risk,” it says in its latest update on the situation in the Horn of Africa country.

According to the agency, a build-up of clouds has been reported from many locations.

“Light showers were recorded in various areas. In Badera rains were more heavy and they affected many sections of the roads in the area. With rivers full and embarkments broken in numerous places, renewed rainfall would be devastating at this stage for many critically flood-affected areas. A second flood-emergency cannot be excluded,” it says.

More than 2,400 people have been killed in flood-related diseases and incidents since October. More than 35,000 heads of livestocks have also perished. As well as a total of over 60,000 hectares of crops and farmlands have also been destroyed, according to the agency.

Langenbacher has also appealed to the local political and traditional leaders in Mogadishu to take action against growing banditry in the city.

“Over a period of only five days, two UN and one Saudi Arabian humanitarian convoys have been attacked with heavy weapons and looted,” he said.

“I strongly appeal to the city’s leadership,” he said, “both factional and traditional, to do what they can to suppress lawlessness and to reassert control. The time has come to act decisively and in collaboration so as to assure a positive future for the long suffering population of Mogadishu.”

The people of Mogadishu began experiencing a wave of organised acts of banditry as well as famine after Somalia fell apart with the overthrow of President Mohamed Siad Barre in January 1991. Barre’s defeat by clan-based rebels left a power vacuum which his rivals, made up of more than 20 warlords, have been fighting to fill ever since.

In a bid to reduce the crisis, the UN stepped in, but had to withdraw its peacekeeping mission in 1995, something which has resulted in a sharp drop in the number of foreign aid agencies willing to risk operating in Somalia.

The four-billion-dollar U.S./UN intervention was prompted by the death in 1991-1992 of some 300,000 people due to starvation, famine-related diseases and civil strife.

It was Washington which first withdrew its troops in 1994 after the supporters of the late General Mohamed Farah Aideed killed around 60 U.S. soldiers. In March 1995, the United Nations also pulled out, leaving Somalia at the mercy of its warlords.

UN officials, like Langenbacher, have moved to the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, from where they oversee UN operations, run by a small team, in Somalia.

“The UN stands ready to assist in any way that we feasibly can,” Langenbacher said. “We are looking forward to working with Mogadishu’s leadership in a secure environment in the near future.”

Langenbacher reiterated his readiness to assist in the re- opening of the air and seaports of Mogadishu — under a united administration — which can also provide the necessary security for full UN operations to resume.

The two rival factions leaders Ali Mahdi, who is warlord for the northern half of Mogadishu, and Hussein Aideed, who controls most of the southern half, Tuesday announced that they had postponed a national reconciliation conference until May 31 in the central Somalia town of Baidoa, mainly for lack of funds.

The parley was to have began on Feb. 15, and had already been postponed once to Mar 31.

Mahdi and Aideed, along with 24 leaders of small factions, signed an accord in Cairo, Egypt, in December that paved the way for the conference and a central administration for Mogadishu.

Currently the United Nations is seeking 79 million US Dollars in donor funding for joint UN and non-governmental organisation (ngo) programmes for operational support, emergencies, food security, re-intergration, rehabilitation and governance, for the year 1998.

As new flooding threatens the south of Somalia, the United Nations agencies have also appealed for an additional 15.3 million U.S. Dollars for inter-agency flood response together with ngos.

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