Somalia Aid Agencies ‘Walk on Eggs’ as Efforts Resume

Four Somali women sat half-buried in a pile of American wheat in a seaside neighborhood here the other day, guarded by U.N. soldiers stationed on nearby rooftops. And, for the first time in two weeks, they resumed the job of giving food to the beleaguered citizenry.

“I was afraid to come today,” admitted one aid recipient, Kadijo Hassan Mohamud, a 25-year-old mother of four who collected her ration of five pounds of wheat in a plastic bag. “But for food, we must trust in God. And if someone kills us, then they kill us.”

The food relief program, halted in much of this capital after a June 5 ambush took the lives of 24 U.N. troops and after subsequent U.N. clashes with warlord Mohammed Farah Aidid, began to resume this week. On Monday, agencies opened six of their 20 sites in southern Mogadishu, scene of the heaviest recent fighting. Meanwhile, out in the vast countryside, a large, new crop awaited next month’s harvest, and aid work continued apace.

But the turmoil in Mogadishu and the United Nations’ vow to crush Aidid have highlighted the vulnerability of foreign aid agencies here. They must rely on U.N. soldiers to protect their operations, but they also must maintain their impartiality in the eyes of Somalis.

“We’ve all tried to distance ourselves from what’s happened,” said Howard Bell, the Somalia field director for CARE International. “But we’re walking on eggs at the moment. We’ve got to maintain our independence here and it’s extremely difficult.”

Like most international aid agencies, CARE operates from offices in Aidid’s territory and has temporarily evacuated most of its foreign workers for fear that they will become targets of Aidid’s forces.

“It’s very important that expatriates stay on,” said Mike McDonagh of the aid agency Irish Concern, which also sent some of its foreign workers away temporarily. “We shouldn’t be seen to be running when things get rough.”

In the meantime, though, Bell said CARE and other organizations “are all going to great lengths to tell people that we are nonpolitical, humanitarian organizations.”

Perhaps more important, the recent fighting here has made it ever more difficult for U.N. and private relief agencies to convince international donors that Somalia, just now emerging from its famine and desperately in need of development projects, can be saved.

“Donors are not really totally convinced yet that this is going to work,” said Mark Mullan, field coordinator for U.N. operations in Somalia. “We are convinced. But we really have to show the international community. The world isn’t sure it’s worth investing in Somalia.”

The relief operation in Somalia has made great strides since last year, when the country was gripped by a famine, triggered by a civil war, that claimed 300,000 lives and left 1.5 million homeless.

“This country was on its knees,” said McDonagh of Irish Concern. “And we’ve made enormous progress.”

The famine emergency is over, thanks to the American and other foreign troops who arrived six months ago to halt widespread looting and reopen the ports and roads. The British arm of Save the Children, which once fed 30,000 children countrywide, now feeds only 2,500 on an average day.

In Mogadishu, of the 200 feeding kitchens that once served hot meals to the most severely malnourished, only a handful remain open. Now aid agencies are distributing dry food, designed to help maintain the still-impoverished population, through 35 sites here, reaching one in five residents of the capital of 1 million. And warehouses at the port are filled with relief food.

As a result, the work of aid agencies has undergone an important change, from feeding the starving to rehabilitation and reconstruction projects, long-term pursuits that are vital to getting Somalia back on its feet and that require the support of international aid donors as well as Somali clan elders.

Schools are being opened across the country, children are being vaccinated against measles, displaced people are returning to their homes and farmers are back in their fields.

The demands on relief agencies are likely to grow in the future as well, when the more than 1 million refugees, about half of whom live in makeshift camps across the border in Kenya, begin to return.

But those projects have been jeopardized by Aidid, his anti-U.N. rhetoric and his refusal to submit to U.N. authority. The United Nations has destroyed Aidid’s headquarters, which lies within walking distance of most private aid agency offices, as well as his radio station. And now the United Nations has ordered his arrest.

By taking sides against Aidid, the United Nations has placed private relief agencies in a difficult spot, relief officials say. They worry that when he is arrested, all foreigners in the country may become targets for his small but still heavily armed supporters.

“This entire relief operation could end tomorrow if this guy (Aidid) opens fire on a U.N. or (private relief agency) vehicle deliberately, or takes a bunch of us hostage,” McDonagh said. “We’ve lost a lot of aid workers already. There’s been a lot of grief.

“Developing this country is going to be a long, hard slog,” McDonagh added. “The U.N. has to get this place by the scruff of the neck, and I don’t think it has the money or the will to do that. So far, the U.N.’s political operation has failed miserably.”

Jonathan Howe, the retired U.S. Navy admiral who heads the U.N. operation, is beefing up his staff of political experts and has recommitted his troops to “coercive disarmament” in hopes of restoring peace to the capital.

Howe contends that the renewed tension in Mogadishu, “while tragic, may actually speed the recovery program,” which the United Nations hopes to be able to turn over to Somalis in two years.

“We’re continuing to work very hard in the rest of the country,” Howe said. “And we’ve succeeded in sending out a message to Somali leaders: ‘Even if you become a threat, our work in the rest of the country will go on.’ ”

Among the general Somali population, Aidid’s support is limited to his own sub-clan. And while many Somalis complain about the U.S. helicopters that awaken them at night and the armored vehicles that roar through the streets, they appear to understand the need for the foreign presence here.

“The U.N. is doing a good job,” said Ahmed Fidow, a former pilot with the defunct Somali Airlines. “We need an arbitrator. Everyone wants to be the boss here. But, at the same time, we fear these foreigners may go too far.”

Somalis are a proud people, and many find it shameful that they must rely on foreigners to resolve their problems.

“We Somalis are sensitive about our freedom,” Fidow said. “And we have been anti-foreigner for decades now.”

But many agree with Hassan Yusuf Jama, a 62-year-old Mogadishu resident, who said: “It is not outsiders. It is our own people who have caused our problems.”