Burnett

HaywoodThurston

In Somalia's war-ravaged capital, Mogadishu, the BBC's Mohamed Mwalimu says more than 4,000 people are crammed into one camp, called Safety. The UN said the humanitarian situation in Somalia's southern Bakool and Lower Shabelle districts had deteriorated rapidly and declared them to be suffering a famine. "What we need is assurances from the World Food Programme and from other agencies, the United Nations or other agencies, both public and in the non-governmental sector, who are willing to go into Somalia who will tell us affirmatively that they are not being taxed by al-Shabab, they are not being subjected to bribes from al-Shabab, Nearly half the Somali population - 3.7 million people - were in crisis, he said, with most of them in the south.