The Worst Corner

Considering all the social unrest that, it seems, morphs every day into violence in the Middle East and Northern Africa, one "country" stands out as being at the very bottom of such consideration. Somalia - in the Horn of Africa, bordered to the south and west by Kenya and Ethiopia, and to the north, just at the entrance to the Gulf of Aden and thereon to the Red Sea and the Suez Canal - has a UN-backed government in its capital, Mogadishu. This is the first Somalian government in more than two decades to be recognized by, among others, the African Union, America, and the International Monetary Fund.

So, this is significant, in a country that has long been regarded as the poster child for failed states, and has been distinguished by its particular comparative advantage - piracy on the open seas. But, events continue to suggest that President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud's Mogadishu government is hardly a national authority. Two decades of clan warfare and intermittent Islamist rule seem to persist in much of the country outside of the capital region.

Thus, two recent developments seem especially discouraging. First, the international medical humanitarian organization Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF)  announced yesterday the closure of all its programs in Somalia, the result of regular attacks on its staff in an environment where armed groups and even civilian leaders have supported or tolerated the killing and assaulting of MSF humanitarian aid workers. As MSF itself put it, "over its 22-year history in Somalia, MSF has negotiated with armed actors and authorities on all sides. The exceptional humanitarian needs in the country have pushed the organization and its staff to tolerate unparalleled levels of risk – much of it borne by MSF’s Somali colleagues  - and to accept serious compromises to its operational principles of independence and impartiality". Given this, MSF is leaving Somalia.

Then, today, the UN warned of a severe outbreak of polio in the country. At least 105 cases have been recorded this year, nearly half the number of cases in the world last year (compared to 350,000 cases in 1988). The World Health Organization reports that polio is nearly eradicated world-wide, and was considered eliminated in Somalia six years ago. So even a few new cases anywhere are a significant set-back. Without MSF, in many parts of Somalia the only provider of health care at any level, the highly infectious polio virus will surely spread rapidly, especially given the widespread lack of clean water in the country. This is yet just another development adding to the overall misery of Somalians, and to the opportunity of Islamist terrorists - in Somalia, known as al-Shabab - to exploit such misery.