Somali humanitarian crisis feeds extremism

By Staff
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Google Oneindia News

NAIROBI, Sep 21: Somalia has become the ''optimum'' breeding ground for extremism because of levels of malnutrition and education that are among the worst in the world, the United Nations children's agency said.

Child malnutrition rates of 15-20 percent have become normal for Somalia while ten percent or more would be regarded as an emergency elsewhere, UNICEF Somalia representative Christian Balslev-Olesen said in an interview.

Despite recent improvements, only 22 percent of children have access to primary school education in the Horn of Africa nation, which has been without government since 1991.

''That's the worst ever case you can find globally,'' he said.

The international community has largely forgotten Somalia and aid has dropped off since a failed international intervention in the early 1990s, he said.

''If you have generations and generations out of school...we should not be surprised there is extremism in Somalia...

''We have left Somalia alone for so long. There has been a space and a vacuum, it is the optimum breeding ground for all kinds of extremism.'' Off the international agenda since the abortive U.S.-led intervention Somalia has returned to the headlines this year with the rise of an Islamist movement.

The Islamists kicked warlords out of anarchic Mogadishu in June and control a swathe of south-central Somalia, challenging the shaky authority of a Western-backed interim government based in the town of Baidoa.

Washington and others fear Somalia could be a haven for al Qaeda-linked extremists, a belief fuelled by the slaying of an Italian nun in Mogadishu and an assassination attempt against President Abdullahi Yusuf in recent days.

Those events forced the cancellation of a visit to Somalia this week by top U.N. officials and make humanitarian efforts more difficult, Balslev-Olesen said late on Wednesday.

''The nun's death means the ICU (Islamic Courts Union) is not fully in control'' of its area, he said. ''And the bombing in Baidoa is an indication that the TFG (Transitional Federal Government) is not in control of Baidoa.''

SOMALIS WANT EDUCATION OVER PEACE

What most Somalis crave is an education for their children and decent healthcare. ''A survey asked 7,000 people around the whole country 'what is the number 1 priority for you?','' he said.

''It was quite clear that number one was education, two was health, three was water sanitation. Issues like law and order, peace and reconciliation, the kind of issues high on the global agenda, they were not mentioned.'' Run by warlords for 15 years since the ouster of dictator Mohamed Siad Barre, Somalia has received only a fraction of the international aid of other developing nations.

''It's a forgotten country. It was simply too difficult, too dangerous. We all had very traumatic experiences after the withdrawal of peacekeepers at the start of the 90s,'' he said.

''No other country has seen that kind of total disappearance of the international community. There is no one with an embassy there... no one present.'' Balslev-Olesen said that at an initial meeting in Mogadishu, Islamist leaders said their priority was education. UNICEF was hoping to work with them, particularly to improve the quality of education in Koranic schools.

With only a third of Somalia's few schoolchildren being girls, a priority would be to ensure education was equally accessible to both sexes, he said.

The Islamists' relative pacification of Mogadishu has given cause for hope, he said. A recent polio vaccination campaign, for example, reached 90 percent of the capital's children, compared to 70 percent under the warlords.

REUTERS

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