|
|
The top United Nations envoy for Somalia
today appealed to the warring parties to settle their
differences peacefully as the impoverished African country,
already torn apart by 16 years of factional fighting, faced the
additional challenge of devastating floods that have uprooted
hundreds of thousands of people. |
|
 After
16 years of conflict it is time for both sides to lower the
temperature of their rhetoric and put the people first,
Secretary-General Kofi Annans Special Representative Franois
Lonsny Fall said after meeting with interested members of the
international community at the UN Political Office for Somalia (UNPOS)
in Nairobi, Kenya. The military build-up and rising tensions
inside Somalia threaten to make an alarming situation very much
worse, he added, calling on the Transitional Federal Government
(TFG) and the Union of Islamic Courts (UIC) to choose dialogue
over conflict.
Mr. Fall said the TFG, based in the
provincial city of Baidoa, and the UIC, which has gradually
expanded its control since seizing Mogadishu, the capital, in
June, made a good beginning when they met in Khartoum, Sudan,
earlier this year. A continuation of the Khartoum dialogue would
give them a further opportunity to flesh out their expectations
and move towards a peaceful solution, he stated. Somalia has
seen the wages of war. Its high time the people had an
opportunity to enjoy the wages of peace. The third round of the
talks, to discuss security and power sharing in a country that
has had no functioning national government since President
Muhammad Siad Barres regime was toppled in 1991, was slated for
October, but was postponed because the two parties came with
preconditions. They are now scheduled for the middle of this
month. Mr. Fall appealed to both sides to facilitate assistance
for several hundred thousand civilians made homeless by the
worst flooding in decades.
The UN agencies working in Somalia estimate
that almost 500,000 people have been flooded from their homes
and there might be worse to come, he said. The rains are
forecast to continue into next year. An international relief
effort is underway, but humanitarian agencies need secure access
for deliveries to those in need. Continued insecurity further
complicates an already difficult task, he added. |
11:00 GMT
