The humanitarian mandate of AMISOM is limited to a facilitation role. The mandate provides that AMISOM shall “Facilitate, as may be required and within capabilities, humanitarian operations, including the repatriation and reintegration of refugees and the resettlement of Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs).”

This is not related to a consideration of an inherent lack of capability and capacity, both human and material, of AMISOM to undertake a full humanitarian mandate.

Activities

In implementing its limited humanitarian mandate therefore, AMISOM has since its deployment in March 2007 effectively secured all the necessary humanitarian corridors (seaport, airport and key streets of Mogadishu thus allowing for humanitarian access to the needy population. AMISOM provides essential escorts to humanitarian convoys headed for distribution points in and around Mogadishu.

Burundian troops serving with the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) distribute fresh, potable drinking water in the village of Modmoday approx. 40km east of the central Somali town of Baidoa. The Burundians, together with forces of the Somali National Army (SNA) have been mounting ‘snap’ foot patrols in villages and areas to the east of Baidoa where Al Qaeda-affiliated extremist group Al Shabaab mount attacks against local herdsmen, villages and travelers along the busy Baidoa-Mogadishu road. The AMISOM troops also use the patrols as an opportunity to provide occasional free medical treatment and drinking water for residents in the area. AU/UN IST PHOTO / ABDI DAKAN.

In terms of coordination and cooperation with humanitarian agencies, the AMISOM Humanitarian Liaison Unit works closely with the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Activities (OCHA), UNICEF-Somalia, UNHCR-Somalia, WFP and other UN agencies and NGOs to establish coordination mechanisms and the sharing of information. AMISOM also collaborates with the Somali Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs and Resettlement, Ministry of Health and other relevant authorities.

Beyond the context of winning hearts and minds as a force protection tool, AMISOM field hospitals and medical personnel have been rendering medical services to the civilian population although the facilities were designed to provide medical attention to the deployed troops. Given the depth of problems in Somalia, AMISOM Medical facilities have now become the one medical point where the civilian population around Mogadishu depend upon. The three hospital departments treat over twelve thousand (12000) patients per month on average. Their treatments vary from chronic medical diseases to surgical cases both acute and chronic. Over 90 percent of these patients are from the local population including TFG troops and officialsmost of them requiring emergency surgical interventions.

Ugandan medical personnel take the blood pressure of a Somali man at a free medical clinic run by Ugandan and Burundian military personnel serving with the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) in Baidoa, the capital of Bay and Bakool region in central Somalia. The clinic is held twice weekly with up to 400-500 people on an average day, treating complaints ranging from sexually-transmitted diseases, to respiatory infections amd cardiac complications. AU/UN IST PHOTO / ABDI DAKAN.