By Prensa Latina
United Nations : A United Nations official warned Tuesday the spiral of chaos and violence affecting Somalia for 16 years now might lead to the ó worst humanitarian crisis in the world ó in that African country.
ó Somalia is at a critical point, and needs urgent help, ó said Guillermo Bettocch, a representative of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees in Somalia, who in statements to the press during his stay in London, said Somalia is about to suffer an unprecedented crisis.
ó The crisis in Somalia, without a central government and under the command of rebel leaders since 1991, will get deeper if nothing is done to stop it. Somalia is going back to a situation ruled by the weapons, with different groups getting advantages, ó he said.
Estimates of the UN said armed confrontations between rivals, hunger and floods have taken the lives of more than a million Somali citizens.
Just last year, thousands of people died in the center and south of the country by combats between the militias of the Union of Islamic Courts and forces of the Transition Federal Government supported by Ethiopian troops.
The African Union committed itself to send 8,000 soldiers to help to disarm hostile groups against the Transition Federal Government, but it has only been able to deploy 1,600 Ugandan soldiers to hardly operate in Mogadishu, the capital.
Bettocch said humanitarian workers are frequent victims of armed groups and mentioned the example of an attack registered Monday at the southern city of Kismaayo, in which three members of the Doctors without Frontiers organization lost their lives.