Aid agencies in Somalia are forced to use local gunmen for security
By ANNA BADKHEN
San Francisco Chronicle
April 10, 2006
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One More pictures………….. |
Jowhar, Somalia
— Spanish aid worker Josep Prior Tio climbs into the backseat of a
Toyota Land Cruiser. Mohammed the gunman gets in next to him, clasping
his Kalashnikov assault rifle between his knees. Ahmed and another
Mohammed — who, like many Somalis, go by only one name — squeeze in
next to the driver, clutching their own AK-47s. Two more gunmen, also
brandishing Kalashnikovs, climb into another Toyota.
Prior Tio and two other
international employees of Doctors Without Borders, the Nobel Peace
Prize-winning humanitarian agency, are finally ready to travel the 25
miles south from Jowhar to a remote village clinic. As their cars
rumble through the gate of their compound onto the rutted dirt road, a
cluster of guards stays behind to protect the compound. Under a metal
awning where they lounge, a lone M-16 assault rifle hangs from a rusty
nail, the words “Property of the U.S. Government” etched into its metal
handle. It is a relic of a failed U.S. military operation to assist aid
distribution in Somalia 13 years ago, recounted in the book and movie
“Black Hawk Down.”
Aid agencies operating
today in Somalia — where the worst drought in decades has put at least
1.6 million people on the brink of starvation — face a cruel choice:
If they want to help victims of the drought and of 15 years of
clan-based civil war, they must work with the gunmen who perpetuate the
incessant violence that exacerbates the effects of food and water
shortages.
“All of the humanitarian
agencies operating in Somalia have armed guards,” said Colin McIlreavy,
head of the French charity’s operations in Somalia. “We’re very
uncomfortable with it, but there’s very little option to pull out of
(the security arrangements).”
In most countries where
they operate, aid agencies such as Doctors Without Borders never use
armed guards. They place stickers depicting a crossed-out gun on their
cars and the gates of their compounds, to demonstrate that they operate
in a weapons-free environment.
“But if you want to
travel in Somalia, you have to make some concessions,” said Lisbeth
Pilegaard, who works with the Norwegian Refugee Council.
The aid groups’ safety
depends mostly on the benevolence of local warlords, and one way to
gain their cooperation is by hiring the warlords’ gunmen. The Doctors
Without Borders mission in Jowhar, a town 50 miles north of the capital
Mogadishu, has 10 gunmen; their operation in Galkayo, a west-central
Somali town near the border with Ethiopia, employs 19 armed men.
“The average salary we
pay is $100 for a nurse and $300 for a doctor,” said Prior Tio, who
together with three other international workers is training Somali
nurses and doctors and vaccinating children against measles. “So we pay
security about $200 per person, like a highly trained nurse.”
Other agencies pay
between $150 and $200 per gunman per month to warlords. The money to
pay for security comes from the groups’ restricted budgets, reducing
the funds available for aid to needy Somalis.
“For a time, we’ve been
discussing whether we need armed guards. But the moment you decide you
don’t need a guard, something happens,” said Salah Dongu’du, from
Sudan, one of the international workers at the Doctors Without Borders’
Galkayo mission.
The gunmen’s mandate does not always correspond with the humanitarian goals of the aid groups they protect.
As
U.N. World Food Programme workers were handing out sacks of food March
21 in a bush village in southern Somalia, where seasonal rains have
failed for three years in a row, the crowd became agitated and gunmen
hired to protect the distribution point opened fire, accidentally
killing one man and forcing the aid workers to flee.
“The crowd became a
little out of control — some people came who were not registered,”
recounted Stephanie Savariaud, a food program worker who was present at
the shooting. “It was shooting in the air to disperse people but one
man got accidentally shot.
“Even a small incident can degenerate because people have a lot of guns. But what is the alternative?”
The
bizarre relationship between gunmen and aid workers sometimes evolves
into confrontations. Last month, one southern Somali warlord claimed
that the U.N. Children’s Fund (UNICEF) owed him $200,000. The warlord
kidnapped and held for a day Robert McCarthy, a UNICEF worker in
southern Somalia. McCarthy, an American, was later released, unharmed.
Denise Shepherd-Johnson,
a spokeswoman for UNICEF’s Somalia project based in Nairobi, Kenya,
refused to comment. But other aid workers who operate in Somalia
confirmed that it was possible for warlords and their gunmen to turn
against the aid groups they have been hired to protect.
“Any agreements are made on very fragile ground,” McIlreavy said.
Hiring
guards does not always mean aid workers are protected from outside
threats. Last year, Somali pirates in the Indian Ocean attacked two
World Food Programme ships, which were carrying food aid to the
country. The agency temporarily halted all deliveries to Somalia by
sea, which is about one-third cheaper than bringing food by road from
the neighboring Kenya. But militias operating random roadblocks often
stop and sometimes hold up its food convoys for days, Savariaud said.
The food program now brings food into the country both by sea and by
road.
And last Monday, a man
wearing a military uniform showed up at the heavily guarded Doctors
Without Borders compound in Galkayo. “He said (we) had to leave within
24 hours, otherwise no one could guarantee our protection from looting
or killing,” Dongu’du said.
James Lorenz, the agency
spokesman, said a local militia has tracked down and arrested the man
who had made the threat, who turned out to be a rogue gunman
unaffiliated with any of the local warlords. But most of the Galkayo
team’s international workers evacuated the next day to Kenya, and it is
unclear when they will return.
“We are very committed to providing medical care to this community, but we’re not there to be martyrs,” McIlreavy said.
After
two hours on bumpy roads, Prior Tio and his entourage arrive at the
clinic in the village of Biyo Ade, where physicians trained by Doctors
Without Borders receive patients in a converted clay house that does
not have electricity. The foreign doctors head into the clinic, and the
five gunmen loiter outside in the dusty courtyard, smoking cigarettes
and chewing khat, a semi-narcotic leaf popular in this region. Their
Kalashnikovs remain slung over their shoulders.
HOW TO HELP
Source: San Francisco Chronicle , April 09, 2006
