UN races to get food to Somali refugees

Somalia – The UN will airlift emergency rations this week to parts of drought-ravaged Somalia that militants banned it from more than two years ago – a crisis intervention to keep hungry refugees from dying along what an official called the “roads of death.

The foray into the famine zone is a desperate attempt to reach at least 175,000 of the 2.2 million Somalis whom aid workers have not been able to help.

Tens of thousands have trekked to neighboring Kenya and Ethiopia, hoping to get aid in refugee camps.

Some – like Isaac Bulle and his family – have nearly nothing left.

“I hope we can cross to Ethiopia, but if we can get help here, we will stay here,’’ said Bulle, who traveled with his two wives and 14 children for 25 days by donkey cart to reach this border town. “Our aim is just to get food. Not to leave the country.’’

Restarting the aid effort is a huge challenge for the World Food Program, whose workers were previously banned from the region by the Al Qaeda-linked militant group Al Shabab. Fourteen program employees have been killed in Somalia since 2008. New land mines have severed a key road to Dolo. A landing strip has fallen into disrepair. Old employees must be found and rehired.

The new feeding efforts in the four districts of southern Somalia near the border with Kenya and Ethiopia are expected to begin by Thursday, slowing the flow of tens of thousands of people who have fled their homes in hope of reaching aid.

The UN said two regions of Somalia are suffering from famine and that 11 million people are in need of aid. But as of Aug. 1, the UN is set to declare all of southern Somalia – including Dolo – a famine zone.

In Rome, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization said a coordination conference would be held tomorrow in Kenya.

The UN is pressing its efforts to gather $1.6 billion in aid in the next 12 months, with $300 million of that coming in the next three months.

Ertharin Cousin, the US ambassador to the UN’s Rome-based food agencies, told reporters she didn’t immediately know if the United States would boost its contribution on top of what it has given.

Last week, the US pledged an additional $28 million in aid for the drought crisis on top of more than $431 million in emergency assistance to the Horn of Africa this year.

New aid will reach Dolo this week. The program is sending 5 tons of high energy bars by emergency airlift Thursday. More food will follow by land.