Toxic waste poisoning Somalia

By Ulrike Koltermann Dec 17, 2005, 18:06 GMT

Nairobi - Just before last December's tsunami hit the coast of Somalia, local fisherman thought their lucky day had arrived.

The preceding force of the wave drove lobsters from the seabed onto the shoreline. But as fishermen collected the valuable harvest the biggest wave they had ever seen came towards them.

Somalia got off relatively light compared to other countries affected by the tsunami, which originated off Indonesia on December 26.

Some 300 Somalis died, thousands of coastal huts and dwellings were destroyed and many fishermen lost their boats and nets.

It has been almost a year since the tsunami caused destruction across Southeast Asia and the Horn of Africa and the picture of recovery in Somalia is ambiguous.

On the one hand many Somalis benefited from the donations that have come in from around the world.

'Many homes have been rebuilt along the coast and many villages now have schools and hospitals for the first time ever. In some areas the situation is better now than before the tsunami, says Maxwell Gaylard, U.N. Humanitarian Coordinator for Somalia.

But Somalia remains one of the poorest countries in the world where less than one fifth of the children attend school.

The food situation is also deplorable. 'If any other country in the world had the same incidence of malnutrition as here there would be an outcry, says Gaylard.

However, it appears Somalia is experiencing another disaster of unknown proportions thanks to the tsunami.

Just after the wave arrived many Somalis living along the coast began to complain about shortness of breath, bleeding from the mouth and eczema.

Experts believe the wave disturbed hazardous waste illegally dumped off the Somali coast and washed it ashore.

'It is urgent that an investigation is carried out, says Nick Nutall, spokesman for the United Nations Environment Programme in Nairobi.

'Nobody knows how much waste was sunk off the coast of Somalia, how poisonous it is and what long term consequences there could be, he says.

It costs an estimated 220 dollars to dispose of a ton of waste legally but just over 2 dollars to sink it off the coast of Somalia illegally.

The unstable conditions in Somalia after the tsunami and the country's difficult political situation have made it impossible to send a team of scientists to investigate.

Clashes between them different armed militias occur frequently. Ships have been hijacked off the coast and there was an attempt by pirates to board a luxury cruise ship a few months ago.

Aid organizations have done their best to alleviate the suffering of the people as the country's interim government has been pressed by other issues.

Members of the government did leave their comfortable exile in Nairobi last year and return to the country but there is still no working centralized authority to speak of.

A few weeks ago as Prime Minister Ali Mohammed Gedi traveled to the capital Mogadishu he only narrowly escaped an assassination attempt.