MOGADISHU (AFP) — The World Food Programme sent an envoy to Somalia on Thursday in a bid to secure the release of one of its top officials who was arrested the previous day, amid warnings of a humanitarian crisis.
"We are in contact with the transitional federal government (TFG) and have sent a WFP officer to Baidoa to pursue contacts with the TFG," said the agency's spokesman Marcus Prior.
"We still haven't recieved any explanation as to why Mr (Idris Mohamed) Osman is being detained and continue to call for his immediate release," he told AFP in Nairobi.
As many as 60 armed security officers stormed a UN compound in southern Mogadishu early Wednesday and arrested Osman at gunpoint, drawing protests from UN chief Ban Ki-moon.
"Idris is still under arrest ... his relatives and other colleagues were not allowed to visit him today," a UN official in Mogadishu told AFP on condition of anonymity.
Prior said the WFP had spoken to Osman, who said he was in good condition in detention in the National Security Service headquarters near the presidential palace in Mogadishu.
"Two WFP staff spoke to Mr Osman by telephone today and he said he is not being hurt, but he has had not received an explanation as to why he was detained," he added.
"We hope that Idris will be released soon because he is innocent and did nothing wrong."
The government has not commented on Osman's arrest.
The arrest prompted the WFP to halt food distribution to tens of thousands of residents displaced by relentless fighting between the government and Islamist insurgents since early this year.
His detention came two days after the agency resumed distributing food to 75,600 people in Mogadishu. The supplies had been suspended on June 25 due to fighting between Ethiopian-backed government forces and guerrillas.
The agency decided to resume its distribution through 42 mosques in Mogadishu after it failed to secure any others.
Prior said that having halted its operations the WFP closed its warehouses and sent its nine staff members to safety, but it warned that the measures would leave the displaced in dire need.
"The city has been in a state of humanitarian emergency for some time, with hyper-inflation, lack of employment opportunities, widespread insecurity, general economic breakdown," Prior said.
"It is very clear that there are thousands of people in the city who need emergency assistance."
UN Office of the Coordinator for Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said 1.5 million Somalis are facing a humanitarian crisis.
Some 15 percent of children suffer from acute malnutrition, a rate above the emergency threshold and only 40 percent receive immunisations, OCHA added.
The World Health Organisation warned that risk of a cholera outbreak in southern Somalia is imminent, three months after an earlier outbreak killed 1,133 people and affected 37,000 people.
"We urge the authorities in Mogadishu to do everything in their power to ensure this vital humanitarian work can resume without unnecessary future interference ... People are depending on this life-saving assistance," said OCHA chief for Somalia Christian Balslev-Olesen.
Violence in Somalia has forced many humanitarian groups to quit the country, leaving it in the throes of a humanitarian crisis where UN agencies and a few others rely on local staff to run limited operations.
Somalia has lacked an effective central government since the 1991 ouster of dictator Mohamed Siad Barre touched off near-endless conflicts that have defied several costly international bids to restore stability.
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