UN calls for help to get food into Somalia

The United Nations has said food shipments to Somalia are grinding to a halt as few vessels are willing to hazard the country's pirate-infested waters, and it called on governments to provide naval escorts.

Peter Goossens, Somalia director for the UN World Food Programme (WFP), said the agency had received no offers of naval protection since late June.

"I have 80,000 tonnes (of food) sitting in South Africa to urgently go into Somalia and so far I've only been able to find one ship of 8,000 tonnes that is willing to do this," Mr Goosen said.

Fighting between Somalia's interim government and Islamic insurgents has triggered a humanitarian crisis that aid workers say may be the worst in Africa.

At least a million people have been uprooted by the violence since early last year, and their plight has been compounded by record-high food prices, hyper-inflation and drought.

Meanwhile, pirates have attacked 24 ships off Somalia's eastern and northern coasts so far this year, compared with 31 attacks in the whole of 2007.

WFP delivers 90 per cent of its food aid to Somalia by sea. It says air and overland routes are not practical given the scale of the operation.

Mr Goossens said naval escorts from France, Denmark and the Netherlands over the past eight months had been successful in protecting WFP ships from attack.

WFP expects the total number of Somalis needing food aid to rise to 3.5 million by December.

It now feeds about 1 million a month, a figure it aims to increase to 2.4 million by the year end. Other relief groups would feed the rest.

Mr Goossens said he had only enough stocks in Somalia to last for five or six weeks.

The United Nations warned last week that the humanitarian disaster could soon rival Somalia's famine of the early 1990s, in which hundreds of thousands died.

"The most nightmarish situation is that we might see Ethiopia-like pictures of famine from the 1980s," Mr Goossens said.

He said food had to be sourced from South Africa because traditional suppliers Kenya and Uganda were starting to limit exports due to rising global food prices.

The United Nations says its aid requirements in Somalia has jumped nearly 60 per cent in six months to $641 million, due to deteriorating security and rising prices.

Of that, WFP needs about $340 million (£170 million) to address the country's growing hunger crisis.

But the food agency says it faces a shortfall of $210 million (£105 million) until the end of March 2009.

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