by Daniel Ooko
NAIROBI, June 17 (Xinhua) -- The United Nations children's Fund (UNICEF) on Wednesday expressed grave concern over the new wave of aggression and hostilities against the humanitarian aid work in Somalia which is putting lives of Somali children and women at great risk.
In a statement issued in Nairobi, acting UNICEF Representative to Somalia Hannan Sulieman said the development would compound children's extreme and already protracted suffering by hampering their access to crucial life-saving services.
Suleiman said the take-over of UNICEF's compound by militiamen following the fall of Jowhar town in Central Somalia under the control of Al Shabaab members on May 17 and the subsequent looting and destruction of life-saving humanitarian supplies and equipments have enormously affected UNICEF's ability to deliver services to the most vulnerable children and women.
"While local authorities and UNICEF maintain cooperative relationships in many areas of Somalia, we are witnessing and experiencing an unprecedented level of aggression against humanitarian work in Jowhar, a situation that should cause a greatdeal of concern not only to the aid community but primarily to Somali communities." said Sulieman.
"Perpetrators of these unacceptable and irresponsible actions must understand that their actions have serious consequences on their own children and women, their own communities and people."
To this date, UNICEF said its compound remains occupied by militiamen and inaccessible to the UN agency's staff.
This severe constraint on UNICEF's work came at a critical time when Somali people are in dire need of humanitarian assistance.
Since the beginning of last month, 122,000 people have been displaced by the fierce fighting in Mogadishu, the largest caseload of new displacement in just over one month.
Displaced people are lacking even the most basic services including shelter, food, water and protection.
Their dire situation is further exacerbated by the lack of humanitarian agencies' presence.
UNICEF said while it continues to work in Somalia, its presence in Central South regions has been jeopardized by the ongoing occupation of its premises by militias, and the disruption of its supply chain through Jowhar.
"Our aid delivery network consists of over 100 non-governmental and community-based organizations which we built and cultivated over the years to provide emergency health, nutrition, water and sanitation, education and protection services," said Sulieman.
"However, this network is at risk of collapsing due to our inability to provide timely assistance to our partners, mainly Somali, to assist children and women through critical programs."
With the cold-chain (vaccine storage) equipment in Jowhar, the biggest in Central South Zone, currently non-functioning, thousand of doses of life-saving vaccines for both children and women have been destroyed.
Highly valuable nutritional supplies meant to be distributed to40,000 of the most vulnerable children under three years old to prevent malnutrition were looted by militiamen.
"We strongly urge that humanitarian work not be impeded in anyway and demand the immediate return of our facilities in Jowhartown as well as the release of looted equipments and supplies," added Sulieman.
Jowhar is the biggest operational hub for UNICEF's support to about 200 feeding centres for the treatment of severely malnourished children, a life threatening condition, and 80 supplementary feeding programs for the treatment of moderately malnourished children.
Delays in the delivery of nutritional and medical supplies and undermining of quality of services put lives and well-being of vulnerable children at risk.
