Conditions in the Somali capital are deteriorating amid fighting between warlords said to be related to the growing power and respect Islamic courts have gained, threatened the warlords powers.
This comes as Libya's leader Muammar al-Qathafi this week received President Abdullahi Yusuf of the Republic of Somalia. Yusuf briefed Qathafi during the meeting about the latest developments witnessed by Somalia pointing out to the transfer of the government and parliament to the Somali city of Baidoa and assuming their missions in this city to control security stability and the return of life to its normality in his country.
The Somalese president appealed Qathafi for his personal intervention to form a committee to follow up the activation of the peace process in Somalia according to the initiatives that were presented by Qathafi during his meeting with various segments and activists of the Somali people over the past years.
On Wednesday, the UN Security Council re-established for a six-month period the mandate of the Monitoring Group on Somalia, set up to investigate the 1992 arms embargo, as the top United Nations envoy to the war-torn country appealed for all sides to end the bloody violence in the capital Mogadishu and "step back from the brink."
The Monitoring Group also "observes an increasing rate of overall militarization and notes that there appears to be a correspondingly greater volatility of the security situation, particularly in central and southern Somalia" and warns that the "pattern of militarization and the trend towards increasing volatility greatly increases the chances of more fighting and the resulting loss of life."
The Monitoring Group has identified the Transitional Federal Government, the Mogadishu-based opposition alliance, the militant fundamentalists, the business elite, pirate groups and feuding sub-clans as "the main actors" to whom the arms are going to, and says these supplies come from several main sources.
"Three fundamental sources feed this flow: a widening circle of States – each with its own agenda – arms trading groups and economically powerful individuals, and the business elite."
"I am deeply disturbed by the daily reports of civilian deaths and injuries and of families fleeing for their lives...By taking their grievances to the streets, these armed groups have effectively unleashed a war on their own people," Secretary-General's Special Representative for Somalia, Francois Lonsény Fall had said.
"I appeal to leaders on both sides to step back from the brink and reconsider the damage they are inflicting on the population. The indiscriminate use of heavy machine guns, mortars, rocket-propelled grenades and artillery in and between urban areas is unacceptable."
Somalia has been torn by factional fighting ever since the collapse of President Muhammad Siad Barre's regime 15 years ago, although despite the current violence in the capital Mr. Fall said there were some signs of hope towards peace, but he emphasized that this couldn't be imposed from outside.
"For the first time in 15 years, we have a parliament in session in Baidoa, just 240 kilometers from the current center of violence. There is a tremendous hunger for peace throughout the country and it is difficult to overstate the importance of what is underway to secure it."
Somalia's Transitional Federal Institutions have been working with IGAD – the multi-country Intergovernmental Authority on Development, the African Union and the international community in an effort to develop a National Security and Stabilization Plan, Fall noted.
"The continuing violence in Mogadishu is a reminder of the urgent need to finalize this plan. It is also a reminder of the challenges that lie ahead," he said. "But security is first and foremost a Somali process that demands buy-in from all the key Somali parties. The international community cannot impose peace on them."
A severe drought has exacerbated the conflict in Somalia, as it has also affected other Horn of Africa countries, although the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said today that seasonal rains in southern Somalia have "warded off the risk of moderate famine, averting a worst-case scenario in the region."
Rains have also mitigated the effects of the drought in northern Somalia although OCHA warned that humanitarian needs in the impoverished country would "remain vast" even if the rains continue to be good.
OCHA also said that insecurity, along with other factors, was also still affecting the pace of humanitarian operations, highlighting for example that only 38 per cent of an estimated 50,000 malnourished and vulnerable children in need of assistance in southern Somalia have so far been reached.
Donor funding is also a major issue, and OCHA said that only 29 per cent – just over $95 million – of the $326.7 million requested under the revised 2006 consolidated appeal for Somalia has been received, with $11 million more pledged.
United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Louise Arbour yesterday said her colleagues in the UN system were poised to deploy, if possible, but there was frustration that "the international community was insufficiently engaged in a country that needed a huge amount of assistance and where a large part of the country still needed governance to take root."
Last week, he sanctions committee for Somalia said that "arms, military materiel and financial support continue to flow like a river to various actors, in violation of the (1992) arms embargo."
An IRIN report said "Though the latest fighting in the Somali capital Mogadishu started on 7 May, the violence goes back to as far as 18 February, when Mogadishu-based faction leaders and their business associates formed an alliance to fight Islamic courts."
The report said that the Islamic courts which have gained support and respect of Somalis may start to be seen by warlords as a threat, adding that this conflict is different from the past in that it is viewed as being promoted by foreign forces who seem to want to undermine these courts. The report quoting some saying that "This time it is not between clans but between two groups with different ideologies.. The two heavily armed militias are the Union of Islamic courts and the Alliance for Peace and the Fight Against International Terrorism, which calls itself 'the alliance'. Members of the alliance include warlords and government ministers."
The report said "According to Mogadishu residents, the past three months of violence in the Somali capital has been the worst they have seen for over 10 years. More than 201 people have died and 1070 wounded according to hospital sources. The majority of these victims are civilian, with militiamen accounting for less than half of the total deaths and a third of the injured. Some of the injuries we are seeing are even worse than what we saw in 1992, said a doctor working in a Mogadishu hospital who also worked there at height of Somalia's civil war. 'We are seeing children of six months and less with parts of their bodies missing.' He said he so far knew of 35 children and 44 women who have been killed in the current fighting."
Speaking to IRIN from the Medina Hospital, Muhubo Salad said she was keeping vigil over her five-year-old daughter who was injured in the crossfire. She said that it was too dangerous to leave the hospital.
"We need help but instead (the faction leaders) have been feeding us bullets for the last 16 years," a Medina Hospital staff said of Mogadishu's faction leaders. "It is our children they are killing. Their children are in safe countries."
The report quoted an observer saying "Many people think that for now the areas in the city under the control of warlords is shrinking. "If I were to put a percentage on the area under the influence and control of the courts I would say 60 percent. The rest is controlled by faction leaders and business people."
Asked on May 3rd about Somalia's president views on US efforts to contain terrorist activities in Somalia." US Department Of State spokesman Sean McCormack said "We are working with the transitional -- the individual members of the transitional government to try to create a better situation in Somalia. That's a country that has been wracked with violence for quite some time and the people have suffered greatly. So you know, our principle here is to try to build institutions and a working government that can help improve the lives of the Somali people. Our other operating principle is to work with responsible individuals and certainly members of the transitional government in fighting terror. It's a real concern of ours -- terror taking root in the Horn of Africa. We don't want to see another safe haven for terrorists created. So I'm not sure sort of the origin of these remarks in terms of what he has in mind, but our interest is purely in seeing Somalia achieve a better day, and part of that is working with the transitional government in building up real institutions that function there."
Today, a New York Times report said no faction is winning and "Many residents say the Islamic courts, which have created a semblance of order in the lawless city of 1 million by providing justice under sharia law, are fighting to repel a determined warlord offensive to take areas under their control. Somalia's interim President Abdullahi Yusuf accuses Washington of backing the warlords 'Alliance for the Restoration of Peace and Counter-Terrorism.'"