Somali insurgents barred on Sunday the World Food Programme from the famine and war-plagued Horn of Africa country. The UN says four million people, half the country's population needs emergency food aid.
   
The al-Qaeda-linked al-Shabaab movement, which controls most of central and southern Somalia, said food distributed by the UN agency had undermined local farmers and accused it of acting with a political agenda.
   
The group accused the Rome-based agency of distributing food that was past its expiry date, which had caused people to fall ill, and alleged that its operations was disguised support for the weak UN-backed transitional government.

"Given the problems caused by the food WFP distributed, the movement of Shabaab al-Mujahideen banned the operations of the agency in Somalia generally starting from today," the group said in a statement.
 

Farmers' complaints

Al-Shabaab said they had received complaints from Somali farmers that the quantity of the WFP food aid prevented them from selling their own products at a fair price.
   
WFP Africa spokesman Peter Smerdon told AFP that the organisation remained determined to help up to one million people who are in need of food aid in southern Somalia, "as long as it is safe for our staff to do so."
   
The WFP announced in January that it was suspending its operations in southern Somalia citing months of attacks and extortion by insurgents.
   
The United Nations said the agency hoped to restart work in the area in March or April, adding the suspension was over the post-harvest period when enough food was available.
   
Continued support

The WFP also said it would continue to send food aid to 1.8 million Somalians in other parts of the country. This included the capital Mogadishu, which is also mostly under al-Shabaab control.
   
The agency has insisted that its role in Somalia is "impartial and non-political".
   
In November al-Shabaab imposed 11 conditions on UN agencies and non-government groups working in the country, including that they do not interfere in Islam and pay a tax of at least 20,000 dollars every six months.
   
Worst crisis

The WFP's website says famine in the country last August left Somalia "facing its worst humanitarian crisis since the famine of 1991/1992, with half  the population - 3.64 million people - now in need of outside assistance".
   
Mired in almost uninterrupted civil conflict since the 1991 ouster of president Mohamed Siad Barre and plagued by recurring natural disasters, Somalia is often described as one of the world's worst humanitarian crises.
   
Al- Shabaab, whose leadership has proclaimed allegiance to Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda network, has been fighting the government and its African Union allies  alongside Hezb al-Islam, a smaller and more political outfit.
   
The UN estimates it will need 689 million dollars (490.5 million euros) to provide aid in 2010 to the Somali population, of which 43 percent live on less than a dollar a day.

Source: AFP