Ramazan fighting threatens Somali famine relief

Somali refugees caught between famine and civil war appealed to international aid organisations to ramp up the distribution of emergency relief supplies that has been jeopardised by heavy fighting in the capital Mogadishu. Hundreds of drought-hit Somalis are streaming into squalid camps in and around the rubble-strewn city every day, defying the orders of Islamist militants who control much of the worst-hit areas to stay put, only to walk into a war zone.
The start of the Muslim holy month of Ramazan two days ago coincided with a jump in suicide attack threats made by the al Qaeda-affiliated al Shabaab rebel movement, which has waged a four-year insurgency against a government it sees as a puppet of the West.
UN staff in Mogadishu said they had for the moment been restricted from moving outside the heavily guarded airport perimeter and so have had to rely on local staff to deliver urgently needed food and shelter.
"Local doctors came to us this morning and said two of my children are malnourished and anaemic. We were given a few days worth of food but we have no shelter, not even plastic sheets," said mother-of-seven Hawa Omar within sight of the airport. Omar spoke to Reuters in a makeshift settlement now home to an estimated 4,000 newly arrived refugees, about 10 km (6 miles) from the front lines where government forces engage the rebels in daily gun battles.
Omar, originally from southern Somalia's Lower Shabelle region, epicentre of the famine, was among several in the camp who said they had not received any help from international agencies, only local residents. Heavy rains in the past few days have also lashed the city, compounding the misery of hunger-weakened refugees.
About 400,000 Somali refugees - almost 5 percent of the country's entire population - are camped out in Mogadishu and its outlying areas. Up to 100,000 refugees arrived in June and July alone, the United Nations says. The UN's refugee agency, UNHCR, said it was able to distribute relief through local networks but acknowledged its work assessing the needs of new arrivals had been slowed.