In Somalia, the hungry wait as militias slow delivery of aid

WAJID, Somalia -- When food stocks ran out at this desolate Somalian refugee camp two weeks ago, families resorted to boiling tree leaves in water, yielding an edible green porridge of dubious nutritional value.

Drought has withered this season's harvest of maize and sorghum. Most of the cattle and goats are dead.

A convoy of 14 humanitarian trucks loaded with 500 tons of maize, beans, and oil began heading for the camp late last month. But it had become snared at a militia checkpoint 35 miles away, an achingly short distance from the hundreds of hungry refugees.

Completing the final leg of the trip should have been simple, particularly given the urgent need. But nothing is simple in Somalia these days.

The emergency shipment was the latest casualty of Somalia's clan-based fiefdoms and rival warlords who have parceled out this African nation since the government collapsed in 1991.

''We are eating trees. Our children are sick," said Ali Marid Mohammed, 55, a clan chief in the refugee camp. ''Now these militias are even preventing the people who are trying to help us. When will this end?"

Almost as anxious to see the aid delivered was Zlatan Milisic, the new country director for the World Food Program in Somalia. Last week Milisic led a small delegation of aid workers and reporters to the Wajid camp to draw attention to the drought and highlight his organization's efforts.

But instead of overseeing the distribution of food to grateful refugees, Milisic got caught up in trying to free the convoy, and what started as a press junket turned into an illustration of the challenges still facing this stateless society.

Aid groups lately are reporting setbacks in Somalia, where a fledgling federal government is so divided that rival factions of it operate from different cities.

In September, rising tensions and weapons stockpiling in the long-peaceful town of Jawhar led UN workers to temporarily flee the city. A month later, a UN security worker in the southern port city of Kismaayo was shot to death. And two World Food Program-chartered ships filled with aid for Somalia have been hijacked and held for ransom in the last five months.

At the same time, the program has become alarmed by the lack of rain in parts of southern Somalia, tripling its projections for emergency food aid and warning that up to 1.3 million Somalis may need assistance over the next six months.

With sea routes off limits, the program organized its first truck convoy in four years to carry food more than 750 miles from its warehouse in Mombasa, Kenya, to Somalia. Besides adding to the cost and slowing delivery, the trip presented logistical challenges.

Because of the risk of attack by bandits in Somalia, the Kenyan transport company hired by the program would haul the cargo only to the border, where food sacks and oil tins had to be transferred to Somalian trucks with Somalian drivers. Once in the fractured country, the real difficulties began. The convoy had to navigate more than two dozen checkpoints set up by various subclans and warlords en route to Wajid, 200 miles northwest of Mogadishu.

By Thursday, the convoy had been on the road more than a week when it was stopped in Yurkut, a southern village. As usual, the deadlock was over money. The transport contractor argued for a lower price because the goods were humanitarian, not commercial. A militia leader held out for more. Each was determined to wait the other out.

Back at the refugee camp, families also waited. Most are former farmers and cattle herders who fled violence in the south in the 1990s and returned in the last six months, hoping to start over.

At the World Food Program compound in Wajid, Milisic received updates on his convoy, but for nearly two days there was little change. The standoff was particularly frustrating because a decade ago, the agency helped pay to build the road.

Milisic eventually appealed to a respected local leader who belongs to the same clan as the militia holding the convoy. The checkpoint was outside his area of authority, but he set off for it anyway.

After several more hours of negotiations, a price was set and the convoy resumed.

But optimism was tempered by news that at least three more checkpoints stood between the convoy and the refugees.

By late Saturday afternoon, Milisic had run out of time. He boarded a UN plane for his Nairobi office without seeing the food distribution. Two hours after his plane took off, the convoy arrived.