On the heels of World Food Day, highlighting the “inherent human right of every woman, man, girl and boy, wherever they live on this planet” to food, comes news that the head of the World Food Program in Somalia, Idris Osman, has been abducted by government troops, in turn highlighting the danger that UN workers on the ground endure in an attempt to guarantee that right. (You’ll no doubt remember that earlier this month, 10 UN peacekeepers were killed in Sudan.)
In Somalia WFP workers also have had to deal with a festering insurgency lead by the Union of Islamic Courts and clan-based militias and piracy off the horn of Africa that threatens 80 percent of aid delivery. Despite those difficulties, WFP workers had been engaged in a campaign to deliver aid to 2 million Somalis (that work has been temporarily suspended due to this abduction).