Kenya urges donors to honor pledges to Somalia

by Daniel Ooko

NAIROBI, June 19 -- The Kenyan government on Friday called on donors to fulfill aid pledges they made to Somalia early this year to enable the Horn of Africa nation to meet security challenges.

Speaking in Nairobi after a crisis meeting with envoys from the European Union, Japan and China, Kenyan Foreign Minister Moses Wetang'ula said the funds would help bolster security in Somalia, a key to also helping end attacks by pirates off the country's coast.

He said the Kenyan government will intervene to bring normalcy in the war-torn Somalia where national security minister and other civilians were in killed in suicide car bombing on Thursday.

Wetang'ula said the crisis meeting with EU and other donors had been ordered by President Mwai Kibaki following the "security threats to Kenya's strategic interests."

"It will be most inappropriate and inadvisable to do nothing when our national security and regional stability is threatened," the minister said without elaborating.

Somali national security minister Omar Hashi Aden was killed in a suicide car bomb in Beletweyne, north of the capital Mogadishu on Thursday.

The brutal murder was allegedly committed by an extremist Islamic group which has links terrorist cell to Al-Qaida.

During the meeting in Nairobi, Wetang'ula warned that the east African nation would not be by-standers as security situation deteriorates in the neighboring country which has had not central government for about two decades.

"We cannot be by-standers in a situation such as this," the minister told journalists in Nairobi. Although the minister did not divulge the specific measures being taken to end the insurgency, he hinted at possible military intervention.

Wetang'ula said the African Union and the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) are looking at options to cushion the Somali government from militia attacks.

Wetangula said money is urgently required in Somalia to help the growing humanitarian needs sparked by the fighting which began in May 8.

"We are requesting donors to honour their pledges. The money will help in addressing the humanitarian needs of the Somalis who are living in dire situation," the minister said.

Heavy fighting in Mogadishu over the past six weeks has killed more than 200 people, including at least 22 in battles on Wednesday.

Many of the casualties Wednesday occurred when a mortar shell hit a mosque. The United Nations said earlier this month that the recent fighting has displaced nearly 120,000 people from Mogadishu.

Somalia has had no effective central authority since former president Mohamed Siad Barre was ousted in 1991, setting off a bloody cycle of clashes between rival factions.

Islamist fighters including the hardline Al-Shabaab militia have waged battles against the transitional government, vowing to fight until all foreign forces withdraw and sharia law is imposed.

More than 1 million people have fled their homes.