Kenyan jets bomb southern Somali town, 12 killed (Reuters)

MOGADISHU (Reuters) – At least 12 people were killed Sunday when two Kenyan jets bombed the southern Somali town of Jilib, residents and officials said, as the east African nation fights to rid Somalia of Islamist al Shabaab rebels.

Kenya moved its troops into Somalia in mid-October in pursuit of Somali insurgents it blames for a series of kidnappings on Kenyan soil and frequent assaults on its security forces in the border province of North Eastern.

"Twelve civilians died including six children and 52 others were injured after Kenyan jets bombarded an IDP (internally displaced people) camp in the town," said Mohamud Ali Harbi, a local elder in Jilib, 120 km (74 miles) north of the port of Kismayu.

Emmanuel Chirchir, the Kenyan military spokesman, could not immediately confirm the raid when contacted by Reuters, saying they were waiting for an operational update from the ground.

"The jets bombarded two places, an al Shabaab base and a nearby IDP camp," Hassan Abdiwahab, a resident in Jilib, told Reuters.

But al Shabaab said the five bombs dropped by the planes hit a bus stop, the IDP camp and an area just outside of the town.

A top official of the group, Sheikh Muktar Robow Abu Mansoor, Thursday urged their followers to attack Kenya with "huge blasts" in retaliation for the campaign that is being carried out jointly with Somali government troops.

The call followed two grenade attacks in the capital Nairobi that killed one person and injured over 20 more Monday. Unknown militants also carried out two attacks on vehicles in the remote northern Kenya.

Mohammud Farah, spokesman for the Ras Kamboni militia that is allied to the Somali Transitional Federal Government said they seized a four-by-four vehicle laden with explosives that was headed to Kenya.

"Our forces in patrol found the car 8 km away from the town on its way to Kenya and we have discovered different types of explosive materials in the car," Farah told Reuters from Dhobley town, which is close to the border.

The vehicle was carrying 10 passengers, four of whom were identified as al Shabaab fighters, he added.

Kenya said Saturday it was committed to withdrawal from Somalia once it is satisfied that it has stripped the al Qaeda-linked group's capacity to carry out attacks across the border.

Although the Kenyan chief of defense forces said his troops had chased al Shabaab from the whole of Gedo region, the two-week old campaign has been slowed considerably by heavy rains.

Chirchir said the intense rains had started to abate, allowing Kenyan forces to plan an offensive of Afmadow in Lower Juba region, where al Shabaab has been digging in after reinforcing with fighters from other areas.

"Now that the rains have subsided, the taking of Afmadow is likely. It should be very soon," he said.

Two Ugandan soldiers were injured Saturday when African Union troops came under an al Shabaab attack in Mogadishu.

Rwanda's President Paul Kagame, South Africa's President Jacob Zuma and Tanzania's Jakaya Kikwete expressed their support for Kenya's military action in Somalia, the Kenyan presidency said in a statement from Perth, Australia, where President Mwai Kibaki was attending the Commonwealth summit.

(Additional reporting by Feisal Omar; Writing by Duncan Miriri)

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US: 29,000 Somali children under 5 dead in famine (AP)

NAIROBI, Kenya – The drought and famine in Somalia have killed more than 29,000 children under the age of 5, according to U.S. estimates, the first time such a precise death toll has been released related to the Horn of Africa crisis.

The United Nations has said previously that tens of thousands of people have died in the drought, the worst in Somalia in 60 years. The U.N. says 640,000 Somali children are acutely malnourished, a statistic that suggests the death toll of small children will rise.

Nancy Lindborg, an official with the U.S. government aid arm, told a congressional committee in Washington on Wednesday that the U.S. estimates that more than 29,000 children under the age of 5 have died in the last 90 days in southern Somalia. That number is based on nutrition and mortality surveys verified by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The U.N. on Wednesday declared three new regions in Somalia famine zones, bringing the total number to five. Out of a population of roughly 7.5 million, the U.N. says 3.2 million Somalis are in need of immediate lifesaving assistance.

Getting aid to Somalia has been made more difficult because al-Qaida-linked militants control much of the country's most desperate areas. Al-Shabab has denied that a famine is taking place, and won't give access to the World Food Program, the world's biggest provider of food aid.

Tens of thousands of refugees have fled south-central Somalia in hopes of finding food at camps in Ethiopia, Kenya and in Mogadishu, the Somali capital.

Hundreds of millions of dollars have been donated to fight the hunger crisis, but the U.N. says it needs hundreds of millions more.

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Somali 7-month-old weighs the same as newborn (AP)

By KATHARINE HOURELD and KHALED KAZZIHA, Associated Press Katharine Houreld And Khaled Kazziha, Associated Press – 2?mins?ago

DADAAB, Kenya – Seven-month-old Mihag Gedi Farah is the frail face of Somalia's famine. He stares out wide-eyed almost in alarm, his skin pulled taut over his ribs and twig-like arms.

At only 7 pounds, (3.2 kilograms), he weighs as much as a newborn but has the weathered look of an elderly man.

Mihag is just one of 800,000 children who officials warn could die across the Horn of Africa. Aid workers are rushing to bring help to dangerous and previously unreached regions of drought-ravaged Somalia.

Famine victims like Mihag bring new urgency to their efforts, raising concerns about how many hungry children still remain in Somalia, far away from the feeding tubes and doctors in the field hospital at this Kenyan refugee camp.

Mihag's fragile skin crumples like thin leather under the pressure of his mother's hands, as she touches the hollows where a baby's chubby cheeks should be.

Sirat Amine, a nurse-nutritionist with the International Rescue Committee, puts Mihag's odds for survival at only 50-50. A baby Mihag's age should weigh about three times what he does.

His mother, Asiah Dagane, fans Mihag with the edge of her headscarf to keep flies away. He cries weakly, and when he does, she bounces him gently to try to soothe him and murmurs softly.

"In my mind, I'm not well," she says softly. "My baby is sick. In my head, I am also sick."

Mihag is the youngest of seven children in his family. His mother brought him and four siblings on the journey from Kismayo to northern Kenya after all their sheep and cattle died in the drought.

Like the tens of thousands of other Somalis fleeing starvation, the family traveled by foot, other times catching rides with passing trucks, cars or buses.

Dagane keeps vigil for her son in the ward, which is painted with cheerful pictures of balloons and fruit, lit with fluorescent bulbs. Other mothers huddle on beds next to babies with IV tubes snaking from their heads or hands.

Some infants cry, others are listless. In the middle of the room hangs a woven basket from a scale — but it's not needed to tell that many of the babies are dangerously malnourished.

Abdi Ibrahim Yara arrived 20 days ago with his four children, including 1-year-old twins. They are unable to drink the fortified milk and must be nourished by an IV.

He and his wife were on the road for 25 days, but she became sick from malnutrition and died. She was four months pregnant.

"We had a comfortable life there, but now there is no one left," Yara says.

Nurse Abukar Abdule says all of those arriving at the field hospital complain of "severe malnutrition." Most have walked from the middle of Somalia, between Kismayo and the capital of Mogadishu.

"We have to treat them for at least a week," Abdule says. "They have no food, shelter or water. Some have diseases. Some died on the road and some were lost. Many mothers who come here have lost children."

The United Nations estimates that more 11 million people in East Africa are affected by the drought, with 3.7 million in Somalia among the worst-hit because of the ongoing civil war in the country.

Somalia's prolonged drought became a famine in part because neither the Somali government nor many aid agencies can fully operate in areas controlled by al-Qaida-linked militants, and the U.N. is set to declare all of southern Somalia a famine zone as of Aug. 1.

Aid organizations including the U.N. World Food Program have not been able to access areas under the control of the al-Shabab militants, who have killed humanitarian workers and banned the WFP.

The U.N. has said it will airlift emergency rations later this week to try to reach at least 175,000 of the 2.2 million Somalis who have not been helped yet.

The new feeding efforts in the four districts of southern Somalia near the border with Kenya and Ethiopia could begin by Thursday, slowing the flow of tens of thousands of people who have fled their homes in hope of reaching aid.

But the WFP hasn't operated there for more than two years and must find and rehire former employees to help with distribution. Transportation is also a substantial obstacle because land mines have severed key roads and a landing strip has fallen into disrepair.

The U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization said a coordination conference would be held Wednesday in the Kenyan capital.

Donations are also desperately needed to sustain the aid effort in the Horn of Africa: The U.N. wants to gather $1.6 billion in the next 12 months, with $300 million of that coming in the next three months.

At the Kenyan refugee camp, Mihag's nurse takes his measurements and describes him as "severely, severely malnourished."

"We never tell the mother, of course, that their baby might not make it," the nurse says. "We try to give them hope."

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How to help:

http://www.interaction.org/crisis-list/interaction-members-respond-drought-crisis-horn-africa

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