UN official calls for improved conditions in IDP camps

A senior United Nations official has urged authorities in the self-declared autonomous region of Puntland in northeastern Somalia to prioritise the improvement of sanitary conditions for displaced people living in camps there. Dennis McNamara, the UN special adviser on internal displacement, was speaking on Tuesday during a tour of Boqolka Buush camp for internally displaced people (IDPs) in the Gulf of Aden city of Bossaso. The camp, the largest in Puntland, is home to thousands of people displaced during the civil strife that engulfed Somalia following the overthrow in 1991 of President Muhammad Siyad Barre. Some of the IDPs have lived there for more than a decade. Former refugees who had returned to Somalia from neighbouring countries also live there. He called upon local authorities to allow more international humanitarian agencies to alleviate human suffering in Puntland and promised that the UN would help improve the squalid conditions in the IDP camps. Early this month, more than 5,000 IDPs and returnees in the camp were left homeless when a fire gutted their shelters. A similar fire in June 2005 destroyed Buulo Eelaay camp in Bossaso, leaving more than 2,000 people homeless. Aid workers have said that one of the most complex humanitarian challenges in strife-torn Somalia is to ensure the delivery of humanitarian assistance and protection for an estimated 370,000 to 400,000 vulnerable IDPs, some of them victims of natural disasters such as drought and flooding. McNamara also addressed the issue of human trafficking in the region. People from Somalia and Ethiopia are often smuggled to Yemen from the port of Bossaso by unscrupulous boat operators, who exploit the migrants’ desperate hope for better lives abroad. Many such voyages have ended in heavy loss of life when unseaworthy, crowded boats have capsized or smugglers forced people overboard. McNamara said it was the responsibility of the Puntland administration to put a stop to the practice. "They should prosecute the traffickers and organisers of this highly profitable trade, which is also extremely dangerous," he said. "The authorities should control the boats that ferry the migrants, who are often lured to their deaths." The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said in an update on Tuesday that the smuggling of people from Somalia to Yemen had increased significantly in the first four months of 2005, with more that 10,500 Somalis and Ethiopians making the perilous boat journey. The total number of Somalis registered in 2005 in Yemen reached 13,400, OCHA said. According to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), some 100 people a day attempted to cross from Somalia to Yemen from September 2005 to March this year. During six days in January alone, UNHCR counted 22 smuggling boats - small, open fishing dhows - arriving in Yemen. In early May, UNHCR said 39 bodies were found near Belhaf in Yemen. Survivors said the dead had been forced at gunpoint to jump from their boat, which had developed a mechanical problem. In another case, there were six dead among 65 passengers, and 14 others had been thrown overboard during the journey. While fatality figures are difficult to verify, the UN confirmed 262 deaths in January and February. Since September 2005, officials say, the dead could number close to 1,000.