NAIROBI (AFP) - The UN food agency pressed Sunday for urgent action to end piracy off the Somali coastline which it said was choking the delivery of food aid to the war-torn east African nation.
"We urge key nations to do their utmost to address this plague of piracy, which is now threatening our ability to feed one million Somalis," World Food Programme chief Josette Sheeran said in a statement released in Nairobi.
Sheeran, speaking the day after a WFP-chartered freighter was attacked and a guard on board killed after it had delivered aid to the Somali port of Merka, said other vessels with food had refused to sail to Somalia.
"This attack underscores the growing problem of piracy off Somalia which, if unresolved, will sever the main artery of food assistance to the country -- and to the people who rely on it for their survival," she added.
"Unless action is taken now, not only will our supply lines be cut, but also those of other aid agencies working in various parts of Somalia," Sheeran explained.
In 2005, a similar upsurge of piracy in Somali waters, including the hijacking of two WFP-chartered vessels, forced the agency to suspend deliveries of food assistance by sea to Somalia for weeks.
Shipping is the most reliable route the agency has to move large amounts of food to Somalia, where hundreds of thousands of people displaced by recent fighting face the prospect of starvation.
Last week, the International Maritime Bureau said this year had seen at least seven pirate attacks off Somalia's 3,700 kilometres (2,300 miles) of unpatrolled coastline.
In 2006, there were 10 pirate attacks, down from 35 the previous year. This was due to patrols by Western warships and tighter control of the sea by the now-ousted Islamists then running the country.
Somalia, which lies at the tip of the Red Sea, has been without an effective government since the 1991 ouster of dictator Mohamed Siad Barre sparked a bloody power struggle.
Source : news.yahoo.com
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