Starving Somalis forced back into famine zone by Al-Shabaab

The best way to take over a people and their land is to directly take away their food or exploit a natural food shortage, weakening them to the point of non-resistance.  If your subjects are too weak to fight, they are easy to subjugate, just promise them what they want and they will follow..  Don't deliver, just make the promise and the barriers for conquest will fall rather quickly.

The Islamists and jihadists in Somalia don't care about the famine, they claim it is hoax anyway and blame Christians, saying it is a plot to be able to minister to Muslims under the guise of "humanitarian help".  Anything to be able to deflect off themselves and project onto those who, due to demonization are readily seen as the bad guys.

Islam is perpetuating the suffering of it's own, all in the hope they can win through misplaced intimidation.


From The Gulf Times September 23

Islamist Shebaab push starving Somalis back into famine zone


Somalia’s Al Qaeda-linked rebels said yesterday they were moving over 12,000 starving families back into famine zones they had fled, where the UN has warned they will die without help.
Draconian aid restrictions imposed by the extremist Shebaab are blamed for turning harsh drought across the Horn of Africa into famine in the areas they control, with 750,000 people at risk of death in coming months, the UN has said.

“The mujahedeen fighters, in their bid to help people displaced by drought, started working on plans to send them back home where they will be assisted, God willing,” said Sheik Mahad Abu-Safiya, a senior Shebaab official.

The families, estimated to number at least 50,000 people, were “taken back to their homes with packages to feed them for three months,” he added. Witnesses said the packages included rice, maize and cooking oil.

However, the Shebaab have refused most international assistance, and blocked people fleeing drought and famine in the Bay and Bakool regions from travelling in search of aid to Mogadishu, where relief efforts are centred.

Crowded trucks began moving people late on Wednesday from camps in and around the Shebaab-held town of Baidoa back to their original villages, up to 50km southwest of the town, officials and witnesses said.

“The process has started and we have moved the first of the 12,000 displaced families to their original locations,” Mohamed Walid, another Shebaab official, told reporters.

“Most of the displaced people were moved from a big camp at Baidoa airport, they were taken on long trucks,” said witness Osmail Mohamed.

“I have seen people returning onboard trucks with food distributed to them by the Shebaab,” said Abdulahi Derow, who said the food they were given was “enough for a month.”

Local aid workers said the Shebaab had ordered them to help move people back to the villages they had fled from. 

“The Shebaab group started sending people back to their homes, and gave them some food,” said one Somali aid worker said, asking not to be named. “But people are still in need of help.” 


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