Ogaden, Top 10 humanitarian Crisis spots of 2008

Ethiopia’s Ogaden is Top 10 humanitarian Crisis of 2008: MSF

The violence and harsh climatic conditions in southeastern Ethiopia’s Somali region have created one of the world’s top ten humanitarian crisis, said Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) in its annual report.

MSF said the local people in the Somali region, also known as Ogaden, are caught between rebel groups and government forces. The Ethiopian government has been criticized by various rights groups for abuses in the Ogaden region, while Addis Ababa labels the Ogaden National Liberation Front (ONLF) separatist rebels as “terrorists” supported by its rival Eritrea.

The government began a counter insurgency campaign after the ONLF killed 65 Ethiopians and 9 Chinese in April 2007. According to VOA, quoting Security chief Abdi Mohammed Omar, the ONLF fighters further “killed 200 civilians” by the end of 2007. During the government crack down on the ONLF, Human Rights Watch (HRW) said Ethiopia’s army has “subjected civilians to executions, torture, and rape…in a vicious counterinsurgency campaign that amounts to war crimes and crimes against humanity.”

Other top world humanitarian crisis inside MSF’s annual list included the violence and emergencies in Somalia, Myanmar, Zimbabwe, Congo, Pakistan, Iraq and Sudan’s Darfur.

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- Complete Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) file on the Ogaden

Due to dangers and restrictions associated with importing goods to the region, the availability of food and other essential items in local markets has drastically decreased and price spikes made basic staples largely unaffordable. At the same time, severe restrictions on movements in certain zones have seriously increased the vulnerability of nomadic people who are unable to search for water and food for their livestock. People have seen their harvests, food stocks, grazing lands, and livestock destroyed by a combination of drought and as a result of the conflict. Some have been directly exposed to the violence.

In May, MSF discovered concerning rates of malnutrition in parts of the Somali region, corresponding to the unfolding nutritional crisis in southern Ethiopia. It also found diseases such as diarrhea, urinary tract and eye infections, indicative of inadequate water and sanitation. In Wardher, a town in eastern Somali region, MSF witnessed thousands of nomadic herders and bush-dwellers drawn to the town’s outskirts, in search of food, water, and health care. Further, MSF nutritional programs in Wardher and in Degahbur have seen a significant increase in the number of children admitted for severe acute malnutrition over recent months, around 1,000 children as of December. MSF is also providing outpatient and inpatient health care as well as tuberculosis treatment.

In an area where the humanitarian needs are vast, there remains a distinct lack of adequate assistance, leaving thousands of people alone to cope with increasing levels of malnutrition and disease. Restrictions on movements mean that MSF is not always able to access certain areas in order to assess people’s humanitarian needs and respond appropriately. MSF estimates that in at least one zone in the Somali region three quarters of the population has no access to health care. The ability of MSF to provide adequate assistance has been affected by numerous administrative hurdles, in one case leading to the closure of an MSF project in Fiiq.

DWB/MSF