Residents of Baidoa, a stronghold of the al Shabaab rebel group, told Reuters they had seen the militants loading food aid from dozens of trucks into their warehouses there on Thursday.
Aid worker sources said al Shabaab wanted to check the quality of the food. However, the targetting of ICRC convoys raised the possibility that the organisation might join a long list of international groups barred from operating inside rebel-controlled areas of Somalia.
"Their claims of checking food quality are misleading. Their intention is very clear, they are looking for justifications to ban the agency like others before," a local ICRC contractor said on condition of anonymity.
The ICRC said in August it was scaling up its emergency food distribution operations in central and southern Somalia to help an additional 1.1 million people hit by drought and war.
It normally has good access to southern and central areas, much of which are controlled by the al Qaeda-linked insurgents, and it is unusual for its convoys to be stopped.
The rebels, who are hostile to Western intervention, banned food aid last year in the areas they controlled and kicked many groups out, saying aid created dependency.
"We are more interested in medical organisations that are running advanced medical facilities. We don`t want our people to depend on food aid forever," a senior al Shabaab official told Reuters when asked about the ICRC convoys.
Al Shabaab lifted the aid ban in July when the food crisis hit critical levels, only to re-impose bans on some groups later. Last month they outlawed 16 relief agencies including the U.N.`s World Food Programme. (*)
Editor: Kunto Wibisono
Copyright © ANTARA 2011
