GENEVA: Humanitarian aid and support from local communities have helped avert a dreaded famine declaration in Somalia this year, but the situation remains “catastrophic,” the UN said on Tuesday.
The United Nations humanitarian agency OCHA said the latest assessment found that, technically, Somalia was not yet in the grip of full-blown famine.
The report “does not lead to a declaration of famine at this point, in large part thanks to the response of humanitarian organizations and local communities,” OCHA spokesman Jens Laerke told reporters in Geneva.
But, he warned, that “does not mean that people are not experiencing catastrophic food shortages.”
“They have kept famine outside the door, but nobody knows for how much longer,” he said.
“The underlying crisis has not improved.”
The United States announced in response that it was contributing another $411 million in emergency food and other relief to Somalia, bringing its contribution this year to $1.3 billion.
“The warnings of the Famine Review Committee serve not as a stamp of inevitability, but as an alarm bell alerting us to our last lingering opportunities to avoid catastrophe,” said Samantha Power, administrator of the US Agency for International Development.
Somalia has been wracked by decades of civil war, political violence and an Islamist insurgency.
Millions of people are at risk of starvation across the wider Horn of Africa, in the grip of the worst drought in four decades after five consecutive failed rainy seasons wiped out livestock and crops.
If assistance is not scaled up, Laerke warned, “famine is expected to occur between April and June 2023 in southern Somalia,” including in the capital.
Agropastoral populations in Baidoa and Burhakaba districts, and displaced people in Baidoa town and in Mogadishu itself were most at risk, he said.
The report indicated surging numbers of people at the highest level on the UN’s five-scale food insecurity classification, known as IPC, which means they have dangerously little access to food and could face starvation.
When a large enough portion of a population is estimated to be at IPC level 5, a famine is declared.
Between last October and next June, the number of people at IPC5 in Somalia was expected to more than triple from 214,000 to 727,000, according to Tuesday’s report.
At the same time, some 8.3 million people across the country are expected to be at crisis level (IPC3) or above between April and June next year, up from 5.6 million today, it said.
A full 2.7 million of them were expected to be at IPC level 4, facing major food shortages, very high acute malnutrition and excess mortality.
“The situation can hardly get any worse,” Laerke warned.
He called countries “to step up and help the humanitarian organizations continue the very important and truly life-saving work” in Somalia.
James Elder, a spokesman for the UN children’s agency Unicef, said that the famine declaration had, for now, only been averted.
If the world wants to delay a famine declaration further or stave it off altogether, this would require “backbreaking work with proper funding,” he said.
“There is no doubt that large numbers of children have died... (and) that children are dying now.”
Aid staves off Somalia famine, for now: UN
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Aid staves off Somalia famine, for now: UN
Syria asks Lebanon to hand over Assad-era officers after Reuters report
- Among the names handed over by Syrian officials to Lebanon were several high-ranking figures acting as intermediaries for Makhlouf or Hassan in Lebanon
DUBAI: Syrian authorities have asked Lebanese security forces to hand over more than 200 senior officers who fled to Lebanon after the fall of Bashar Assad, following a Reuters investigation that showed how the neighboring country was a hub for insurgent plotting.
On Dec. 18, a top Syrian security official, Brig. Abdul Rahman Al-Dabbagh, met with his Lebanese counterparts in Beirut to discuss the exiled Assad-era officers, according to three senior Syrian sources, two Lebanese security officials, and a diplomat with knowledge of the visit.
The meetings came days after a Reuters investigation detailed rival plots being pursued by Rami Makhlouf, the billionaire cousin of the ousted president, and Maj. Gen. Kamal Hassan, former head of military intelligence, both living in exile in Moscow, to finance potential Alawite militant groups in Lebanon and along the Syrian coast. Syria and Lebanon share a 375-kilometer border.
The two rival camps aim to undermine the new Syrian government under President Ahmed Al-Sharaa. Reuters found they are sending money to intermediaries in Lebanon to try and stir uprisings that would divide Syria and allow the plotters to regain control over the coastal areas. The population of those areas is dominated by Alawites, the minority sect associated with the Assad family and the dictatorship’s ruling elite.
Al-Dabbagh, an aide to the head of internal security in Syria’s Latakia province, an Alawite stronghold, met with Lebanese intelligence chief Tony Kahwaji and Major General Hassan Choucair, head of the General Security Directorate, and presented them with the list of senior officers wanted by Syria.
The visit focused on gathering information about the whereabouts and legal status of the officers, as well as trying to find ways to prosecute or extradite them to Syria, according to the Syrian sources.
They described it as a direct request from one security agency to another, rather than a demand for extradition.
Three senior Lebanese security officials confirmed the meetings. One of the Lebanese officials denied receiving any demands from the Syrians to hand over the officers. Two others acknowledged receiving a list of names but said none were senior officers.
One of the Lebanese security officials said there is no evidence of any insurgency being planned, despite the threats against Syria’s new government detailed in the Reuters reporting.
All the officials spoke on condition of anonymity to reveal details of a highly sensitive cross-border issue.
Among the names handed over by Syrian officials to Lebanon were several high-ranking figures acting as intermediaries for Makhlouf or Hassan in Lebanon, according to a Syrian source who saw the list.
A Lebanese judicial official said Syria had not made a formal extradition request to Lebanon, typically done through the two countries’ justice and foreign ministries.
Accompanying Dabbagh on his Beirut visit was Khaled Al-Ahmad, a former Assad adviser and childhood friend of Sharaa, who is leading the government’s efforts to win over the Alawite community through development projects
and aid, according to two witnesses who saw the men together on that mid-December day.
According to the two witnesses, who are both ex-Assad officers, Al-Ahmad and Dabbagh went together to Azmi, an upscale Beirut restaurant that is popular among Assad’s men. The two witnesses said they and others interpreted the outing as a warning to those trying to influence Alawites to rise up against Syria’s new leaders that Lebanon is no longer a haven.
A manager at Azmi declined to comment on the visit.
In a Jan. 2 post on X, Lebanese Deputy Prime Minister Tarek Mitri called on his government’s security agencies to verify the information circulating in the media and take action against the Lebanon-based agents for Assad’s former insiders, Makhlouf and Hassan.
“It is incumbent upon them, and upon all of us, to avert the dangers of any actions that undermine Syria’s unity or threaten its security and stability, whether in Lebanon or originating from it,” the tweet read.
In response to questions from Reuters, Lebanon’s General Security referred to Jan. 11 remarks by Lebanese President Joseph Aoun, who said Lebanon’s military intelligence and other security agencies had carried out raids in several areas of the country’s north and east. Aoun said the raids did not produce evidence of the presence of officers linked to the Assad dictatorship and said Lebanon was continuing to coordinate with Syria on the issue.
Syrian government officials did not respond to requests for comment.
From Jan. 3 to Jan. 6, Lebanese soldiers raided locations and shelters housing displaced Syrians. The Lebanese Army said 38 Syrians were arrested during the raids on different charges such as possession of drugs or weapons, or entering the country illegally.
A senior Lebanese security official told Reuters those raids were linked to the exiles’ plots.
Another senior Lebanese security official emphasized that there was no arrest warrant for the Syrian officers in Lebanon, nor Interpol requests for them.
“We can’t do anything against them,” the official added.
