Al Shabaab bans some aid groups in
Somalia, loot

29 November, 2011 | By Mohamed Ahmed and Katy Migiro
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MOGADISHU/NAIROBI (Reuters) - Al Shabaab rebels
stormed and looted offices of aid organisations in famine-hit
Somalia on Monday, the United Nations said, and the rebels
announced a ban on 16 relief agencies from areas they control.

    Rebels occupied agency
    offices and took supplies in
    southern and central areas at a
    time when a quarter of a
    million Somalis face starvation
    and Kenyan, Somali and
    Ethiopian forces are fighting
    the al-Qaeda-inspired group.

Al Shabaab, which controls large areas of the anarchic country,
said it had "decided to permanently revoke the permissions of
the following organisations to operate inside Somalia", naming
16.

These included agencies like the U.N. refugee agency UNHCR,
the World Health Organisation (WHO), the U.N. children's
agency UNICEF and the Norwegian and Danish Refugee
Councils. The International Committee for the Red Cross and
Medecins Sans Frontieres escaped the ban.

U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, through his spokesman,
condemned in the strongest terms possible the seizure of
property and equipment belonging to aid groups and U.N.
agencies.

The U.N. Under-Secretary General for Humanitarian Affairs,
Valerie Amos, said she was extremely concerned by the looting,
urging the rebel group to reverse the announcement and
withdraw from seized compounds of aid groups.

"Any disruption to ongoing humanitarian efforts threatens to
undermine the fragile progress made this year, and could bring
back famine conditions in several areas," Amos said in a
statement.

The rebels, who are hostile to Western intervention, banned
food aid last year in the areas they controlled and kicked many
groups out, saying aid created dependency. They lifted the ban
in July when the food crisis hit critical levels, only to re-impose it
later.

Some organisations were found to be "persistently galvanising
the local population against the full establishment of the Islamic
Sharia system", the group said in a statement.
Al Shabaab, which wants to impose its harsh interpretation of
sharia, the Islamic moral and legal code, also accused the
banned groups of financing and aiding "subversive groups
seeking to destroy the basic tenets of the Islamic penal system".

Pieter Desloovere, WHO Somalia's communications officer,
said the agency's offices in the Somali towns of Baidoa and
Wajid had been attacked on Monday.

UNICEF's Jaya Murthy told Reuters the agency's offices had
been occupied by al Shabaab in Baidoa on Monday.

"All of our staff that were in the office at the same time were
asked to leave. All of our staff are safe. Our Baidoa office is
currently still being occupied. No other UNICEF office is
currently being occupied and all staff in Somalia are safe,"
Murthy told Reuters in Geneva.

Aid sources said al Shabaab rebels had occupied UNICEF,
WHO and non-governmental organisation offices in Baidoa and
six other the rebel-controlled towns.

LOOTING VACCINES

A number of the aid agencies are funded by western nations
which support Kenya's incursion into Somalia against al
Shabaab.

Some aid efforts were suspended after Kenya sent troops into
southern Somalia more than six weeks ago to crush the militants.
Military action has also prevented displaced people returning
home to plant crops during the rainy season.

A Baidoa resident described how the militants had seized the
UNICEF and WHO offices there.
"Al Shabaab have just started to loot UNICEF and WHO
compounds in the town - they stormed and seized the
compounds two hours ago. Now I can see them carrying the
agencies' equipment out," Ali Abdullahi told Reuters.

Another resident in Wajid said he saw al Shabaab fighters
forcing security guards out of UNICEF's compound.
"Immediately, they started looting vaccinations and even the
freezers in which they are stored in," Fadumo Ibrahim told
Reuters.

MAKESHIFT BOMB

Two Somali soldiers were killed by a makeshift bomb in the
capital as they were trying to destroy it, a police officer told
Reuters.

"Two of our soldiers died and another was injured while trying
to collect an IED (Improvised Explosive Device) item planted
on the street," Diini Yusuf said.

Kenya's pursuit of al Shabaab across the border has provoked
attacks on its soil. Attacks in Garissa town in North Eastern
Province near the border killed 4 people and wounded 27
others last week.

Human Rights Watch (HRW) accused Kenyan security forces
of beating people and detaining them illegally in the wake of
attacks in the province.

"Arbitrary arrests of large numbers of people ­­­- such as when
there is no evidence to believe they are suspects in a crime - is a
serious violation of the human rights of the detainees and
unlawful detention should be treated as a crime in itself," HRW
said in a statement.

                                    Courtesy
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