Kenyan govt suggests food air-dropped into Somalia

Kenyan government on Thursday expressed concern about security threats posed by the large number of hungry Somali refugees and suggested food should be dropped by plane inside Somalia.

Tens of thousands of hungry Somalis have flooded refugee camps in neighbouring Kenya and Ethiopia in search of help.

Kenyan Prime Minister Raila Odinga said his government is concerned about the security threat posed by those refugees, and he urged aid groups to set up feeding camps in areas of Somalia not controlled by the militant group al-Shabaab.

"It is possible to set up food camps there and tents so that they can live there," Odinga said. "Once [refugees] come to Kenya they don't want to go back. They say it is better to die in Kenya than in Somalia."

The government spokesperson said Kenya would like to see food aid dropped by planes into Somalia to slow the influx of refugees into Kenya.

In Mogadishu, the African Union envoy to Somalia, Jerry Rawlings, who wept as he told desperate Somalis seeking food that "I will knock on every door I can to help you."

Soldiers beat back a rush of families during a handout of food aid.

Corruption a problem

Somalia's 20-year-old civil war is partly to blame for turning the drought in the Horn of Africa into a famine. Analysts warned that aid agencies could be airlifting emergency supplies to the failed state 20 years from now unless the UN-backed government improves.

"Corruption is a major part of the problem in Somalia," said Rashid Abdi, a Somalia analyst at the International Crisis Group.

"This drought did not come out of nowhere, but the [Somali] government did not do anything to prepare for it. Instead they spent all their time fighting each other."

The UN has appealed for $300m to over the next two months and aid agencies warn it will take at least $1bn to provide emergency food, medicine and shelter for 11 million people in East Africa until the end of the year.

Pictures of skeletal children and grief-stricken mothers stare out from Western newspapers in mute appeal.

The suffering is real. The UN believes tens of thousands have already died in the inaccessible interior, held by al-Qaeda linked Islamist rebels who denied many aid agencies access for two years.

The thorny scrub around the overflowing refugee camps in Kenya is littered with tiny corpses abandoned by mothers to weak to even dig their children a grave.

But Somalis will continue to suffer unless the international backers who support the Somali government also demand that it does a better job, said Abdirizak Jama, who headed the government's finance management unit until he fled the country after he wrote a report detailing tens of millions of dollars in missing donations from Arab nations.

EU pays cops

"The Somalis are very grateful for what the international community is doing for them, but they need to be a bit more forceful in holding our politicians to account," Jama said.

Currently, the government only holds half of the capital with the help of 9 000 African Union peacekeepers. The salaries of 10 000 Somali soldiers are paid by the US and Italy, and the police are paid by the European Union.

The EU's humanitarian aid chief said on Thursday that the famine offers a fresh chance to push for peace if local and international leaders step up.

"Perhaps we should see this crisis as an opportunity for more attention to be brought back to Somalia," Kristalina Georgieva told The Associated Press, noting that the worst drought in the region for 60 years had hit Somalia hardest because the government and infrastructure there are weakest.

"It might be that the incredible tragedy in Somalia... is an opportunity for a renewed effort, and it has to be from the international community and the Somali people themselves and their leadership," she said.