Africa to focus on Somalia unrest

LIBYA: African nations need to devote more attention to ending the unrest in Somalia, which has been “abandoned” to its fate for too long, the head of the AU Commission Jean Ping told AFP in an interview.

The African Union’s largest peacekeeping mission is in Somalia, with a force of 4,300 that now mainly protect the internationally backed President Sharif Sheikh Ahmed from an Islamist insurgent offensive that began on May 7. A force of up to 8,000 peacekeepers has been authorised, and Ping said the AU summit that opens Wednesday needs to decide on how to proceed in Somalia, which has been without a central government for 18 years.

“The most acute crisis facing us today is Somalia,” Ping told AFP ahead of the African Union summit in the coastal Libyan town of Sirte.

“Firstly, there are violent clashes and arms in circulation, raising the risk of more significant confrontations and the problem of terrorism. “There is also the maritime piracy that is a consequence of all the other problems,” he said. “It appears everyone has abandoned Somalia,” he added.

Somalia has had no effective central authority since the 1991 ouster of president Mohamed Siad Barre touched off a bloody power struggle that has defied around a dozen different peace initiatives.

Since the latest violence erupted nearly two months ago, the United Nations estimates 250 civilians have been killed while more than 160,000 have fled their homes.

Last week, a US official said the United States was giving Somalia’s embattled government urgent supplies of weapons and ammunition to fight off the insurgents, while Somalia’s speaker has made an urgent appeal for foreign military intervention.

SIRTE, Wednesday, AFP