Iran proposes solution to Somalia crisis

Iran has called for exhausting all regional and international capacities and the formation of a special UN committee to help Somalia out of its deepening famine crisis.

On Thursday, representatives from the 192 members of the United Nations food agency convened in an emergency session in Rome to discuss ways to ease the famine crisis in Somalia, IRIB reported.

Addressing the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), Iranian Ambassador Javad Tavakkolian presented the Islamic Republic’s seven-point proposal to end the crisis in the Horn of Africa nation.

The proposed solution calls for full support for FAO’s priorities in the Horn of Africa, including FAO demands from aid-providers to save the property and livestock victims and to provide them with necessary seeds and agricultural inputs.

It also urges the Group of Eight (G8), especially France which holds the rotating presidency of the G8, to implement the pledges the group made in a meeting at the FAO headquarters in January 2011.

The bill further requires FAO and other international organizations to seriously pursue the issue and inform member states about their efforts.

It calls on all countries for immediate financial and non-financial for Somali people through appropriate channels and calls on relevant world bodies to deliver aid supplies to the crisis-hit region.

Iran has also demanded a more efficient use of the capacities of regional and international organizations, including the organization of Islamic cooperation.

The Iranian proposal also calls on FAO to set up a special committee along with other international organizations to facilitate relief efforts in Somalia and issue transparent reports on the situation on the ground.

More than three million Somalis are at risk of starvation in Somalia, where a state of famine has been declared by the United Nations.

According to aid agencies, the drought is the worst in decades to hit Somalia, which has been without a functioning government since warlords overthrew the country’s dictator Mohamed Siad Barre in 1991.

The World Bank has warned in a new report that over the last three months 29,000 children under the age of five have died of malnutrition and starvation in the country.