The massive consignment is from the Durban-based humanitarian group Gift of the Givers.

The organisation has been frantically working to feed some of the estimated 3.2 million starving people in the Horn of Africa country.

This week, a cargo plane delivered 35 tons of aid ahead of a contingent of doctors and media that arrived in Mogadishu on Wednesday to set up base at the largest local hospital, Banadir.

For three weeks now, the organisation has been running feeding centres out of four camps housing thousands of displaced families.

On Friday, the United Nations said nearly a million Somalis had fled to neighbouring states, while 1.4 million had been displaced within their own borders. UN satellite imagery has identified 188 sprawling communities in makeshift plastic tents as more and more people flood into Mogadishu.

A combination of drought, war and weak interim governments has produced a devastating humanitarian crisis.

Gift of the Givers founder Dr Imtiaz Sooliman said about R2-million had been donated by South African companies in the past five days.

"We have to stand together as Africans and pledge our commitment to our brothers and sisters in Somalia," he said.

Apart from its feeding centres, which serve thousands of nutritious "wet" meals daily, the group's volunteer doctors have been working miracles.

On Friday, surgeons performed four operations with their own equipment in their first-ever theatre established from scratch.

One emergency operation saved the life of a woman who had suffered severe internal injury from a gunshot. An AK47 bullet was removed from her.

Somalia remains volatile as the transitional federal government inches closer to elections in August next year. The country has been devastated by 20 years of civil war, the capital bearing terrible scars from years of heavy pounding.

Gunshots and cannon fire are heard every night, although some stability has been restored to Mogadishu after the African Union mission to Somalia routed terrorist group al-Shabab last month with a force of 6200 peacekeepers.

A UN security source said terrorist incidents had decreased dramatically since the counter-insurgency strategy.

Al-Shabab loyalists, although depleted, continue to plant roadside bombs as they resort to what the security source described as "asymmetrical warfare".

In the past month soldiers thwarted a car bomb outside Banadir Hospital.

Yesterday, most of the 29-member South African medical team moved to Forlanini Hospital, north of the city, and began receiving the first patients in an area controlled by al-Shabab until a few weeks ago.

The Italian-built facility operates as a basic clinic with limited resources twice a week, seeing between 250 and 500 patients a day.

• To make a donation or read more about the mission, visit www.giftofthegivers.org