Washington is withholding millions of dollars of aid fearing it benefits al Shabaab rebels loyal to al Qaeda who control much of central and southern Somalia and want to impose a harsh version of sharia law in the Horn of Africa country.
In a letter obtained by Reuters yesterday, UN humanitarian coordinator for Somalia Mark Bowden said the allegations had created an “adverse climate of public opinion about Somalia” despite increasing needs.
He was referrring to a report by a UN panel of experts monitoring compliance with UN sanctions against Somalia and Eritrea that said up to half the food aid for needy Somalis was being diverted to a network of corrupt contractors, al Shabaab militants and local UN staff.
“The UN Country Team is concerned that these estimates of diversion are not apparently based on any documentation but rather on hearsay and commonly held perceptions,” Bowden said in the letter dated March 23.
“They do not provide the evidential basis for discussion that was the hallmark of previous Somalia Monitoring Group reports,” he added.
He said UN agencies were doing their best to manage “financial, operational and reputational risks to the UN” in a complex environment long dominated by a war economy.
“This is already affecting flows of humanitarian assistance and will inevitably make it more difficult to sustain a humanitarian lifeline to central and southern Somalia at a time when there are increasingly high levels of child malnutrition,” Bowden said of the allegations.
Agencies describe the lawless nation as the world’s worst humanitarian crisis after fighting killed at least 21,000 people and forced more than 1.5 million from their homes since early 2007. It has the world’s highest malnutrition levels.
