VZCZCXRO7267
PP RUEHRN
DE RUEHRN #0003/01 0131935
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
P 131935Z JAN 10
FM USMISSION UN ROME
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC PRIORITY 1247
INFO RUEHC/USAID WASHDC
RUEHDS/AMEMBASSY ADDIS ABABA PRIORITY 0031
RUEHBS/USEU BRUSSELS PRIORITY 0286
RUEHGV/USMISSION GENEVA PRIORITY 0345
RUCNDT/USMISSION USUN NEW YORK PRIORITY 0446
RHMFIUU/CJTF HOA
RUEATRS/DEPT OF TREASURY WASHINGTON DC
RUEHRN/USMISSION UN ROME 1324

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 04 UN ROME 000003 
 
SENSITIVE 
SIPDIS 
 
STATE FOR IO/HS, PRM/MCE AND EEB/IFD/ODA 
USAID FOR DCHA, FFP, OFDA, AND AFRICA BUREAU 
NAIROBI FOR GEORGIANNA PLATT, SUREKA KHANDAGLE AND NICK COX 
TREASURY FOR DAN PETERSON, LIZA MORRIS AND PRIYA GANDHI 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: WFP SO AORC EAID PREF EFIN UNHCR
SUBJECT: WORLD FOOD PROGRAM SOUTHERN SOMLIA OPERATIONS UPDATE 
 
REF: A. (A) STATE 132604 
     ¶B. (B) UN ROME 01 
     ¶C. (C) UN ROME 77 
 
¶1.  (U) This message is sensitive but unclassified.  Please 
handle accordingly. 
 
--------------- 
Summary 
--------------- 
 
 
¶2.  (SBU) On January 12 the UN World Food Program presented an 
update on the current situation in southern Somalia to the 
Executive Board following WFP's partial suspension of operations 
announced on January 5 resulting from escalation of attacks and 
threats on WFP staff.  WFP is still able to provide assistance 
to one half million IDPs in the Afgoye region and Mogadishu, but 
expressed uncertainty as to how much longer they would have 
access to Afgoye.  The program will do all possible to continue 
operations.  WFP's latest concerns are the recent skirmishes in 
Dhuusamarreeb, Galgaduud which have forced WFP to redeploy staff 
to the north in Adado and a new foreign element within 
Al-Shabaab with ties to Al Qaeda.  WFP leadership, based on 
recent observations in southern Somalia, believes that with 
encouragement from community elders there is hope for a 
turnaround in the stance of militants who forced WFP to suspend 
operations.  WFP will provide a weekly situation report (sitrep) 
in response to Board member requests for updates during the 
consultation.  The first sitrep is attached at paragraph 11 of 
this cable. 
 
 
 
--------------- 
 
Somalia Update with New Concerns and A Glimmer of Hope 
 
--------------- 
 
 
 
¶3.   (SBU) At a WFP informal consultation on January 12 attended 
by the UN Rome Ambassador, Deputy Executive Director (DED) Amir 
Abdulla and Chief Operating Officer and Director of Emergencies 
Ramiro Lopes da Silva updated the Executive Board on the current 
situation in southern Somalia.  Donors had requested a 
consultation following escalation of threats and attacks on WFP 
staff and unacceptable demands placed on the organization by 
armed groups leading up to WFP'S announcement of partial 
suspension of operations on January 5. 
 
 
 
¶4.   (SBU) In southern Somalia, WFP continues its work servicing 
approximately one million beneficiaries in Mogadishu, where 
relative calm exists, and Afgoye.  Afgoye remains a humanitarian 
imperative as approximately 500,000 internally displaced persons 
(IDPs) have access neither to food nor alternative livelihoods. 
WFP is not sure of how much longer they will be able to access 
Afgoye, where transport routes require that WFP cross Al-Shabaab 
militant lines, but reassured that they will do all possible to 
continue to assist beneficiaries. 
 
 
 
¶5.  (SBU) Alternative transport routes for humanitarian aid to 
reach Mogadishu and Afgoye are being explored.   Airdrop of food 
has not yet been deemed necessary.  Depending on access to 
Afgoye and movement of IDPs, airdrops could be necessary in as 
early as three weeks time. However, WFP predicts that should 
they be required to suspend distribution in Afgoye, IDPs would 
most likely move to Mogadishu. 
 
 
 
¶6.   (SBU) Prior to suspension of operations, WFP completed as 
much advance distribution of food stocks as possible, although 
some was seized by Al-Shabaab, with the remainder of food stocks 
and equipment repositioned to other WFP locations in the north 
of Somalia where storage capacity at WFP warehouses has been 
increased.  No food stocks were left behind. 
 
UN ROME 00000003  002 OF 004 
 
 
 
 
 
¶7.   (SBU) New concerns were communicated over recent skirmishes 
in Dhuusamarreeb, Galgaduud, which has forced WFP to redeploy 
staff to the north in Adado.  WFP also noted their concern on a 
growing foreign element in Al-Shabaab, formerly local and 
clan-based; the Shura or command center of the organization is 
now headed by a Comorian national named Abdul Fazul, believed to 
be an Al Qaeda operative with links to the 1998 U.S. Embassy 
bombings in Kenya.  WFP further stated that the situation has 
been made more complex by the fact they are no longer dealing 
with a decentralized group, but one that is more tightly 
controlled under central command and thus cannot be dealt with 
locally. With cautious optimism, the WFP COO observed that since 
WFP's departure after suspension of operations in the south, 
their absence is being noticed and with encouragement from 
community elders and/or clan pressure, there remains hope that 
hardliners will reverse their stance against WFP and allow them 
to resume operations. 
 
 
 
--------------- 
 
WFP Current Strategy 
 
--------------- 
 
 
 
¶8.   (SBU) Several Executive Board members wondered whether 
other actors on the ground in Somalia could step in where WFP 
has suspended operations.  In reviewing their current strategy/ 
actions, WFP indicated that they have alerted other 
organizations with programs in Somalia such as the International 
Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) which has a limited presence 
mainly in the north.  NGO operators in central and southern 
Somalia, however, have small capacities and would be unable to 
assume a large-scale operation.  Furthermore, the current ban on 
foreign food means all imports through any organization would be 
prohibited.  Notwithstanding predictions of a good harvest, 
Somalia remains a food deficit country (local production has 
averaged 30 percent of food needs in the last five years) and 
local purchase would have debilitating effects on markets. 
 
 
 
¶9.   (SBU) With the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), 
WFP is assessing the potential movement in a worst-case scenario 
of one half million refugees out of central and southern 
Somalia:  200,000 would become internally displaced; 150,000 
would displace to Kenya; 50,000 to Ethiopia; 30,000 to Djibouti; 
and 75,000 to Yemen.  All refugee movement will depend on the 
length of WFP's suspension.  WFP has a large presence in each of 
these possible IDP destination countries.  If IDP movement 
occurs the resources programmed for Somalia would be switched to 
the appropriate country.  WFP and UNHCR will jointly lead a 
regional contingency planning exercise before the end of 
January. 
 
 
 
¶10.  (SBU) A further strategy involves continuing to improve the 
logistics chain from north to central Somalia.  In addition to 
moving product from Mombasa to Bossasso, WFP has opened a new 
distribution channel from Salalah, Oman to Bossasso.  WFP 
communicated some of the challenges this northern route creates 
including the need to improve port capacity at Bossasso.  The 
northern route also presents security concerns because of the 
Somaliland areas controlled by pirates as well as the issues of 
transport through the Red Sea. 
 
 
 
--------------- 
 
Conditions for Normal Operations 
 
--------------- 
 
 
UN ROME 00000003  003 OF 004 
 
 
 
 
¶11.  (SBU) WFP concluded that in order to return to normal 
operations, three conditions would be necessary:  1) previous 
conditions set out by controlling authorities for humanitarian 
agencies to operate must be rescinded (dismissal of all female 
staff, no identification of WFP in any way, required payments of 
$30,000 every six months for `operating license'); 2) the ban on 
imported food must be lifted; and 3) guarantees must be put in 
place for the safety of WFP staff. 
 
 
 
--------------- 
 
Situation Report 
 
--------------- 
 
 
 
¶12.  (SBU) In response to Board member requests to be updated 
weekly, the following sitrep was disseminated to the Executive 
Board on January 13. 
 
 
 
"WFP Somalia Operations Situation 
 
As of January 11, 2010 
 
 
 
Summary Update 
 
-WFP has suspended its work in much of Southern Somalia due to 
escalating threats against WFP staff, and unacceptable demands 
by the armed groups controlling the area. WFP issued a statement 
on the 5 January which stated that it `is deeply concerned about 
rising hunger and suffering among the most vulnerable due to 
these unprecedented and inhumane attacks on purely humanitarian 
operations.' WFP is repositioning stocks in case people begin to 
move in search of food. WFP offices in Waajid, Buaale, 
Garbahaarey, Jilib, and Beletwein in the south are temporarily 
closed, and staff has been moved to safer locations in central 
Somalia and Kenya. 
 
 
 
- Despite the temporary suspension of its operations in parts of 
the south, WFP continues to provide life-saving food 
distributions to the rest of the country or to over two-thirds 
of the people in need, including 1.8 million people in 
Mogadishu. NOTE:  1.8 million should refer to the number of 
beneficiaries WFP is feeding in all of Somalia and UN ROME has 
asked WFP to send a corrected version of the situation report. 
 
 
 
 
 
The wet feeding programme in Mogadishu is ongoing in all 16 
sites with sufficient stocks until end of January. 130 mt of 
mixed food commodities are expected to be distributed next week 
through the nutrition programme in Mogadishu. WFP will continue 
with food distribution in Afgoye corridor from Mogadishu when 
stocks are available. 
 
 
 
Whereas UNHAS in-bound flights to Merka, K50, Wajid, Buaale and 
Beletwein are suspended until further notice, WFP will continue 
operations in Galkayo, Bossasso and Hargeisa. Flights to 
Mogadishu will be approved on a case-by-case basis. 
 
 
 
Communities in affected areas are now putting pressures on TFG 
and insurgents to allow for WFP to resume operations, which has 
prompted Al Shabaab (AS) to issue a press statement denying its 
responsibility for causing insecurity and demanding money from 
 
UN ROME 00000003  004 OF 004 
 
 
aid agencies, including WFP. 
 
 
 
WFP Security Update 
 
-WFP continues to monitor the security situation in Somalia and 
support missions to the North. In Mogadishu, the threat of 
suicide attacks remains high between the airport and KM 4. 
 
 
 
-On January 7, four WFP staff (three national staff member and 
one casual daily worker employed as local security assistant) 
was relocated out of Wajid to Hargeisa. 
 
 
 
-The same day, all movements for all UN staff members on 
missions using the Garowe - Bossasso road have been restricted 
with immediate effect. The decision is a precautionary measure 
after the government announcement of the killing of the Puntland 
MP on 5 January 2010. Security clearances for missions using the 
Bossasso - Garowe road have been revoked. 
 
 
 
-In Hargeisa, Bossasso and Galkayo, international staff members 
are present and able to continue with programme activities. 
COUSIN