Horn of Africa

Wednesday, 25 May 2011 11:46

Written by Thomas C. Mountain

UN Cuts Food, Expands War in Somalia

As the UN funded African Union “peacekeepers” expand their military occupation of Mogadishu the UN relief agency announces an over 2/3 cut in food aid to one million Somali refugees due to a “funding shortfall”.

The UNHCR apparently has decided that they will provide 30% of the daily minimum food requirement to the million Somali refugees they have been keeping alive rather than cut off aid to any in the UN camps. This as the UN/AU army has been increased by thousands of Ugandan troops along with dozens of additional tanks, heavy artillery and helicopter gun ships. 

Today, according to the latest press conference held by the “peacekeepers” the AU army now controls over half of Mogadishu. Along with the expansion of the war in Mogadishu comes reports by refugee agencies of a spike in Somali refugees, both arrivals at the refugee camps and in Somali’s fleeing the country.

From on the ground in Somalia;

“I really hope and pray that someone is listening. I work for ***** and I have just returned from Dadaab, it is hell on earth, and this has been going on for 20 years. Today 320,000 are living in camps for 90,000. Geldof's images that so shocked the world in the 80's are the daily lives of people there today, children severely malnourished, new arrivals having to walk miles to register instead of the UNHCR providing registration in all the camps, the rationale being that if they have made their way from Mogadishu they can surely walk a few more miles for registration...people who have already began the process of a slow death, mothers with 8 kids in tow, it is disgusting (the people saying this are obviously in an air conditioned room and have probably not walked any where in a few decades). I don't know how this can be justified in a so-called modern society. Where is our humanity? Keep writing.”

With the already bare minimum food allotment cut to only 30% the UN is overseeing the slow death by starvation of the million Somalis they are responsible for. This as the UN funded “peacekeepers” see their  funding steadily expanded, the more efficiently to carry out the western mandated “war on terror” on the Somali people.

As one of those burnt out heroes in the relief works says so bleakly, “where is our humanity”? 

Thomas C. Mountain

Asmara, Eritrea

thomascmountain at yahoo dot com

Thomas C. Mountain is the only independent western journalist in the Horn of Africa, living and reporting from Eritrea since 2006 

Horn of Africa

Monday, 30 August 2010 00:29

Written by EritreaCompass

Pirates of Puntland; A Tale of Somali Pirates, Ethiopia and the USA

Thomas C. Mountain

Pirates, warlords, Marxist guerilla turned G-20 statesman and the USA, the real story of the Somali pirates in the Horn of Africa is a tale that needs telling. This story starts in a place calling itself Puntland, after The Land of Punt, a once great and glorious civilization in Africa’s Horn, today a forgotten legend found only in the most ancient texts. Formerly part of Somalia, Puntland can be found at the very tip of the Horn of Africa. From its shores desperadoes in small, open boats motor hundreds of miles into the Indian Ocean in search of unwary ships to hijack and hold for ransom.