Somalis Miss Out on Food Aid

Half of all food aid to Somalia never reaches the hungry because it is diverted by contractors, Islamic militants, and local United Nations employees, a new report by the U.N. Security Council finds. The situation is so bad that the report calls for an investigation into the World Food Program's operations in Somalia, and says that the food distribution might need to be scrapped and rebuilt. The aid program serves 2.5 million people and was worth $485 billion last year. Regional Somali officials are working with pirates, and government ministers have auctioned visas to Europe to bidders who may have been militants, the report says. The U.S. is sending Somalia's transitional government aid as it readies for a major military offensive in Mogadishu, the capital taken over by Islamists linked to al Qaeda. Decades of civil war have left Somali security forces "ineffective, disorganized and corrupt," the report says. Recently, a U.S. official said the country's "best hope" is the new head of the Somali military, a 60-year-old former artillery officer who was assistant manager at a German McDonald's only months ago.