Doctors Without Borders (MSF) said Monday it was outraged at the lack of access to care for Somalis in and around Mogadishu and the general disrespect by warring parties for humanitarian efforts.
"The level of care that is being provided usually in the capital is very low but it has been decreasing over the last months very shockingly," MSF international chief Christophe Fournier (eds: correct) told reporters. "The medical staff and even the patients, because of the growing level insecurity in this city, are more and more prevented" from accessing whatever little medical infrastructure is left in Somalia's capital, he said.
The Horn of Africa country has been mired in conflict for 16 years. An Islamist militia that briefly seized control of large parts of the country in 2006 was ousted by Ethiopian troops who rescued the embattled forces of the interim Somali government earlier this year.
Since then, the Islamist-led insurgency has launched almost daily guerrilla-style attacks against government targets, in violence that has continued to displace tens of thousands of civilians.
"We are not able to deploy our teams today in this context... We have tried to increase our activities especially since April... yet we haven't been able to run all the facilities, only a few outpatients facilities," said Fournier.
"With bombings and shootings nearly daily occurrences in Mogadishu, people in need of medical care are terrified to leave their homes, medical personnel are fleeing the city, and hospitals are closed or barely functioning," he said.
MSF said that, according to its own estimates, fewer than 250 out of the 800 hospital beds available in Mogadishu in January are still in service. Fournier also bemoaned what he described as "the lack of respect" for his organisation's humanitarian endeavours in Somalia and urged all belligerents to facilitate relief work.