By: Yusuf M Hasan
BERBERA (Somalilandsun) – A ship laden with food aid rejects is currently docked at the Berbera port.
The Ship is reported to be laden with Turkish food aid for Puntland which the administrative region of Somalia rejected recently.
The ship which is carrying food items offered by the Turkish Red Crescent was part of a consignment offloaded in Mogadishu while the rest was sent to the port town of Bossaso, the commercial capital of Puntland.
The decision to reject the food aid was taken when a team of ministers appointed by the authority’s President Abdurahman Mohamed Farole concluded that it was undesirable to accept food aid that directly came from Mogadishu.
On August 5, Puntland declared that it would official cut ties with the Mogadishu based Federal Government of Somalia (FGS).
The government of Somaliland has neither clarified why rejected food items from another country nor what is the final destination of the now stranded ship and its cargo which sources indicate the donors, Turks, now want to offload for somalilanders.
While food donations are very much welcomed, rejected ones especially by Puntland or any other country are unworthy of landers who have learned to survive through sheer guts.
On the other hand, if the benevolent Turks want to help the presumed hungry in Somaliland which we at Somalilandsun are unaware of, they, the Turks, should send original consignments not from Mogadishu but either Ankara or Istanbul.
In the meanwhile good riddance with the rejected food aid