Somalia: UN Envoy Calls Government to Help Droughts Affected

[Coeus]

u — Augustine Mahiga, the United Nations' special envoy for Somalia on Tuesday called the officials of the transitional federal government of Somalia to act quickly to help those who severely affected by the droughts hit many regions in the nations.

After a surprise trip to Mogadishu on Tuesday, the UN representative to Somalia, noted that it is important for the government to enhance and assure the overall security atmosphere of war-ridden horn of Africa nation, adding if the security gets better and better the international community will have the ability to come to the nation and assist the needy Somali internally displaced people.

Ambassador Mahiga told the media that he and the prime minister of Somalia discussed how the government can do more about the droughts struck the south-central Somalia as TFG are not able to reach all those places where Al shabaab, which declared its allegiance to Al Qaeda network.

The statement of UN comes as severe droughts hit parts of Somalia and many people fled from the mainly ethnic Somali region in eastern Ethiopia on Friday reached at parts in Galgudud region in central Somalia.

Witnesses in the region told Shabele that hundreds of families displaced from the regions in eastern Ethiopia because of water shortages.

Reports from Somalia's semi-autonomous state of Puntland say that hundreds of rural people had been affected by water shortages.

People say that a lot of their domestic animals died of thirst and that had impelled them to flee from their villages looking for water and food.

Most of southern and central Somalia, where Al shabaab controls, are experiencing severe droughts.

Shakir Ahmed, a local elder, said that about 500 domestic animals died from lack wet hay to graze and water to drink, adding local people in southern Somalia are, right now, facing both shortage of water and food.

"The drought affected places are the makeshift sites of thousands of people who displaced from ongoing violence in Mogadishu," Ahmed told a local radio station.

Some of Somali parliamentarians called for aid agencies to act quickly to assist droughts affected areas in Somalia.

However, Somalia's Al shabaab has already banned more that 20 international relief agencies from operating in regions they control.