Humanitarian assistance to millions of Somalis must remain a top priority and not be subsumed into political processes, a leading international medical humanitarian organization said on Feb. 28, 2013. Responding to United Nations’ statements about integrating humanitarian assistance into the ongoing international military campaign in Somalia, Jerome Oberreit, Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) Secretary General, said in a press release that politicizing humanitarian aid puts Somalis and aid workers responding to the crisis “in even greater danger.” Although the famine was officially declared over last February, a MSF report based on interviews with more than 800 Somalis, says humanitarian need and access remains a challenge, especially to nearly two million people living in the south and central parts of the country.
“As the Somalia government and its donors look toward a new era, humanitarian assistance – including food, water, shelter and health care – dissociated from political objectives and processes should remain a priority,” the February 2013 report, titled, Hear My Voice: Somalis on Living in a Humanitarian Crisis. Critical of counterterrorism polices that have the effect of severely limiting aid distribution in places where terrorist groups operate, the report said these policies impede “humanitarian response efforts leaving large gaps in aid provision.” In the U.S., the material support statute effectively blocks access to civilians by barring logistical negotiations with blacklisted terrorist groups, like al-Shabaab, and treats incidental or minimal leakage of aid in the same manner as deliberate distribution of aid to terrorist groups.
Instead, Oberreit says the humanitarian aid system must avoid being co-opted by the counter-insurgency efforts in Somalia to remain effective. “Aid must therefore remain independent and impartial so that humanitarian organizations can try to negotiate access to populations in need with all parties to the conflict and mitigate security risks as much as possible,” he said.
“As we’ve seen previously in Somalia, and in places like Afghanistan, Iraq, Sierra Leone, and Angola, when military stabilization or peacekeeping efforts integrate humanitarian aid as a tool to advance political and security objectives, aid actors, including health workers, are invariably delegitimized and prevented from reaching populations trapped in conflict,” said Oberreit. “In extreme cases, aid has even been denied to populations to serve political interests of stabilization efforts. Humanitarian assistance must be driven purely by the actual needs of a population, and not predicated upon any other agenda,” he added.
According to this fact sheet produced by Reliefweb, Somalia is facing one of the “worst humanitarian crises” in the world today. “One in three Somalis is in urgent need of humanitarian assistance and one in every three children living in the South-Central region is malnourished.”