Somali hospital short of medicine after flights blocked

The suspension of all flights between Somalia’s capital, Mogadishu, and the southern city of Kismayo, has led to medical shortages that could put lives in danger, the Kismayo hospital director said.

Flights have been blocked by the federal government since Monday because of tensions with the regional administration in Kismayo.

The general hospital in the city is facing a lack of medicine and cannot refer any patients to Mogadishu or other cities in East Africa, director Hussein Sheik Osman said.

“Medication and other hospital facilities have finished or are scarce,” he said.

“This might cause a death because of a lack of medicine.”

Dr Hussein also said it was a problem that the hospital could not evacuate some patients.

“There are people who we can’t help and there is no opportunity that we could send them to another hospital.

“The only route that was open was flying and that is not available now.”

Road travel to Kismayo from the capital has been blocked by the Islamist militant group al-Shabab since 2012.

The current tensions between the federal government and the government of the Jubbaland region came after Ahmed Mohamed Madobe, a former militant, won a disputed local election in August, which the federal government cancelled.