The United Nations Security Council yesterday addressed its concerns on the humanitarian crisis in the region and agreed to delay an open debate on Somalia until U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon releases a report on the situation in early March, Security Council President Ricardo Alberto Arias told S.P.A. on Friday. Somalia “is becoming one of the most serious if not the most serious humanitarian crises we have around the world,” Arias said. “There was a discussion on the renewal of the mandate,” Arias said, but it is contingent upon a report by the Secretary General. The humanitarian situation, the Somali forces' lack of political agreements and understandings and the need for support for the African Union Mission to Somalia (AMISOM) are all concerns that are shared by the Security Council, Arias told S.P.A. “Until we have this report by the fact-finding mission from the Secretariat, we will not be in an appropriate position to deal with that,” Arias told S.P.A. The Council decided to extend the African Union Mission to Somalia (AMISOM) instead. Opposition groups within Somalia will not desist from fighting the Somali government until Ethiopian troops are withdrawn from the country. Two main opposition groups in Somalia include the Somali Transitional Federal Parliament and the Islamic Courts Union, but there are also clan-based opposition groups. Last year, the U.N. Security Council adopted a resolution establishing an 8,000 African Union (AU) peacekeeping force to replace Ethiopian troops, but only Uganda has sent 1,600 troops while Burundi has delayed their pledge for around 2,000 troops. About two million Somalis are in desperate need of humanitarian assistance, according to the United Nations.
