UNITED NATIONS: The top UN envoy to strife-torn Somalia urged local groups Wednesday to hasten the election of a new president, even as Ethiopian troops withdrew from Mogadishu two years after rolling into support the government against growing insurgency.
“Today Somalia needs and deserves an effective and representative government with wide-ranging participation, particularly from the new generation of young men and women, who are not tainted by past violence, corruption or excessive clan loyalties,” said UN Special Representative Ahmedou Ould-Abdallah, addressing fears that the country, already fighting an Islamic insurgency and rampant piracy, could collapse into chaos after the withdrawal.
The current transitional parliament has already endorsed the principle of enlarging the legislature and creating a coalition government, bringing the divided assembly together, as well as for the expanded parliament to elect a new president by the end of the month.
Ould-Abdallah also called for an end to the conflict and the deployment of an international stabilization force to the troubled Horn of Africa nation.
Somalia, which has not had a functioning national government since 1991, has been plagued by fighting and humanitarian suffering for decades. Continuing instability, coupled with drought, high food prices and the collapse of the local currency have only worsened the dire humanitarian situation in recent months.
The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) estimates that currently a total of 3.25 million people, or 43 percent of the entire population of Somalia, need humanitarian assistance, and around 25 percent of the population are suffering from acute malnutrition.
The UN World Food Program (WFP) now feeds more than 1.5 million Somalis every month and shipped some 260,000 tons of food to the impoverished nation in 2008.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment