Piracy is a growing problem along Somalia's long coastline, slowing efforts to feed as many as 2 million Somalis left hungry by severe drought, UN Secretary General Kofi Annan said on Tuesday. Due to the threat of pirate raids on food shipped by boat, the World Food Programme (WFP) has had to move some aid overland to southern Somalia through Kenya for the first time in five years, Annan said in a report to the Security Council.
UN officials estimate that 1.5 million to 2 million people are in need of food in the northeast African nation, one of 11 countries in the region hit hard by prolonged drought. The situation is so dire there that some Somali children are drinking their own urine, international aid group Oxfam reported this month. Somalia's coastal waters have become the world's most dangerous in the 14 years the country has lacked a central government since warlords ousted military dictator Mohamed Siad Barre in 1991. |