The U.N. Political Office for Somalia will beef up international and local staff in the semi-autonomous regions of Somaliland and Puntland, in Somalia's northern areas. Nairobi (Sunatimes) The United Nations said Tuesday that more U.N. personnel will be sent to war-ravaged Somalia after years of low staff levels in the troubled nation.

Nairobi-based UN special envoy for Somalia Augustine Mahiga, said he expects the increased UN staff presence in Somalia will help ease violence on the ground and advance the peace process in the country.

Mahiga, the former Tanzanian ambassador to the UN, said it was crucial that his UN Political Office for Somalia (UNPOS) ultimately be represented in the Somali capital Mogadishu, currently the scene of constant gun battles between government troops and Islamist rebels.



The U.N. Political Office for Somalia will beef up international and local staff in the semi-autonomous regions of Somaliland and Puntland, in Somalia's northern areas. But personnel are still essentially off limits to the anarchic seaside capital, Mogadishu.

Violence has engulfed the Somali capital since the African Union deployed peacekeepers in 2007 to protect the embattled government from Islamist insurgents who control most of the rest of the country.

The United Nations has more than 60 international staff and nearly 800 national staff based in Somalia. In recent years, U.N. personnel have suffered murders and kidnappings in Somalia, widely considered to be one of the most dangerous countries in the world for aid workers to operate.

Over the past 17 years, U.N. personnel assigned to Somalia have been based in Nairobi, Kenya's capital, because of the insecurity.

The UN's World Food Program is feeding 340,000 people in Mogadishu, where much of Somalia?s vulnerable population is located.

Southern Somalia is the worst part of the country in terms of security. Chronic warfare has plagued the region since 1991, when the government of Mohamed Siad Barre was overthrown. Most of the country's most vulnerable people are in the south, according to Mahiga's statement.

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