Ambassador Fall warns of a grave and continuing humanitarian emergency

PRESS RELEASE

New York 11 July - The Secretary-General’s Special Representative for Somalia, Francois Lonseny Fall, told members of the United Nations Security Council in New York yesterday that the rise of ‘hardliners’ within the Islamic Courts poses a serious threat to the peace process and to the country’s Transitional Federal Institutions (TFIs) in particular.

Ambassador Fall told the Council that expectations raised by the 22 June Khartoum meeting between the three main leaders of the TFIs and a delegation of the Islamic Courts, under the auspices of the League of Arab States, had been quickly eroded by cease-fire violations.

Against the backdrop of renewed fighting in Mogadishu since the weekend, Ambassador Fall said that finding a compromise during a second round of discussions scheduled for Khartoum on Saturday (15 July) would be difficult, given the fact that the Islamic Courts no longer hid their aspirations of ruling all of Somalia.

Ambassador Fall noted that although “a semblance of peace and security” had returned to Mogadishu and the surrounding areas before the latest round of fighting, some of the Islamic Courts had begun to assert versions of Shariah Law and security in Mogadishu and militias of the three defeated warlords of the anti-terrorist alliance, continued to hold onto small sections of the city. The murder on 23 June of Martin Adler, a Swedish journalist on assignment in Mogadishu, had also raised concerns about security for foreigners in the city, he said.

The humanitarian situation in the country remained grave, he said. Armed conflict in Mogadishu had exacerbated an already dire situation in a country where coping mechanisms are overstretched. Although timely rains had averted a possible famine in some areas of southern Somalia, the situation demanded reinforced and sustained efforts to address vast humanitarian needs and southern Somalia would remain in a state of humanitarian emergency at least until December 2006. Among the worst affected, were some 250,000 Somalis now internally displaced within Mogadishu itself.

Ambassador Fall is scheduled to meet the Press at today’s noon briefing by the Secretary General’s Spokesman in New York. Live Webcast: http://www.un.org/webcast/index.asp

For more information please contact: Ian Steele, UN Political Office for

Somalia (Nairobi, Kenya) email ian.steele@unon.org

Source: United Nations Political Office for Somalia (UNPOS)