From: antbh@strix.udac.uu.se (Bernhard Helander)
Newsgroups: sci.anthropology
Subject: Somali News Update, October 6
Date: 6 Oct 92 20:42:39 GMT
Organization: Uppsala University
NNTP-Posting-Host: strix.udac.uu.se

____________________________________________________________________

              S O M A L I A  N E W S  U P D A T E

____________________________________________________________________

No 30                  October 6, 1992.               ISSN 1103-1999

____________________________________________________________________
Somalia News Update is published irregularly via electronic mail.
Questions can be driected to antbh@strix.udac.uu.se or to fax number
+46-18-151160. All material is free too quote as long as the source 
is stated.


This issue contains AP news wires from the past two weeks, kindly 
supplied by  Jim Rosenfield <jnr@igc.apc.org>

*/ APn  09/27 1204  Horn-Country Thumbnails
Copyright, 1992. The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

Here is a country-by-country outline of the drought and refugee 
crisis in the Horn of Africa:
   SOMALIA -- Driven by anarchy and hunger, many of Somalia's 6 
million people are on the move. Experts say that is a big reason so 
many of them are dying. Relief agencies are trying to deliver food 
directly to villages rather than focusing on centralized aid camps. 
The idea is to keep people at home rather than waste their energy in 
desperate, often fruitless, searches for food. Most camps for 
Somalis outside their country have well-organized operations by now, 
but the problem is overwhelming. More than 300,000 Somalis are 
sheltering in Kenya, 400,000 in Ethiopia.
   ETHIOPIA -- An estimated 1.5 million Ethiopians died during the 
civil war that ousted a Marxist government in 1991 and from drought 
and forced relocations of people that overwhelmed the relief system. 
In addition to caring for 400,000 Somali refugees, Ethiopia's 
struggling young government must see to hundreds of thousands of its 
own people displaced first by the civil war and then the unrest in 
neighboring Somalia. In the Ogaden, nomads afflicted by three years 
of drought have become wards of relief agencies.
   SUDAN -- Nobody knows how many people died in a horrendous 
drought in western Sudan in 1984. By 1988, five years after civil 
war began, deprivation forced hundreds of thousands of people to 
abandon their homes to seek food. At least 250,000 Sudanese died; 
some Western relief workers put the figure at 500,000. Both 
government and rebels have used food as a weapon, barring shipments 
for political reasons. Relief planes have been shot down, river 
convoys, trucks and trains attacked.
   KENYA -- In little over a year, Kenya's refugee population has 
skyrocketed from 14,000 to almost 400,000, mostly because of anarchy 
in Somalia. At the same time, severe drought over wide areas of 
northern and eastern Kenya have put many Kenyan nomads, mainly 
ethnic Somalis, in peril for the first time.

Used with permission of Associated Press


APn  09/27 1206  Horn-Relief Workers

Copyright, 1992. The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
DAGAHALEY CAMP, Kenya (AP) -- Habiba Ali, 20, lovingly holds her son 
Mohamed as a doctor with a large syringe feeds him
through a nasal tube. The 2-year-old is little larger than a 
newborn.
       Like so many others in this eastern Kenya camp for Somali 
refugees, Mohamed may have arrived at the feeding center too late. 
Scores of tiny mounds in a graveyard 300 yards away attest to his 
probable fate.
       "We have social workers who go tent to tent, finding kids 
whose mothers wouldn't bring them in for one reason or another," 
said Eddie Kangara, a Kenyan official with CARE International who 
supervises the camp. "It's often too late."
       Elodie Martel, a Montreal native who is in charge of social 
services for CARE's camps in Kenya, said many of the Somali women, 
traumatized by the anarchy they left behind to seek safety, are 
desperately afraid of authority figures, even doctors.
       But she also spoke of the ultimate desperation of some 
parents.
       "She will come and say, `My child died.' But really, the 
mother or father has pushed with one hand over the child's eyes, and 
put the other over the mouth," Miss Martel said. "I've talked to 
doctors who have seen it done. They say the baby doesn't fight at 
all.
       "Apparently they figure why give medicine to my child -- 
she's hopeless -- when others can be saved."
       No matter how professional the charity worker, the pressure 
of seeing dead children every day is telling.
       Riding on the back of a pickup truck into Liboi camp just 
east of Dagahaley, regional camp coordinator Gail Neudorf of 
Vancouver, B.C., pointed to a group of men standing and talking.
       "Look at those men. Do you see anybody malnourished? No," she 
said.
"That's because the men eat first, the women eat next, then the 
children eat -- if there's anything left after the animals eat. 
That's what really hurts: The animals eat before the children.
"It makes sense for survival in the nomadic culture. But not now." 
--------------------------------------------------------------
Used with permission of Associated Press


APn  10/02 1633  Somalia
Copyright, 1992. The Associated Press. All rights reserved. 

By EDITH M. LEDERER 
       MOGADISHU, Somalia (AP) -- Somalia's chief warlord embraced a 
U.N. envoy at a public rally and appealed for peace Friday, but left 
uncertain whether he would oppose the use of U.N. troops to protect 
food shipments from bands of armed looters. 
       At a rally of more than 1,000 supporters, Gen. Mohamed Farrah 
Aidid praised the efforts of the U.N. special envoy to Somalia, 
Mohamed Sahnoun, to unite a nation where civil war and famine have 
claimed at least 100,000 lives. 
       Dozens of armed gunmen surrounded Aidid on the dusty military 
parade ground, and vehicles mounted with artillery and anti-aircraft 
guns were parked nearby as he called for an end to violence and the 
theft of relief supplies. 
       "The looters and killers who murder in cold blood should be 
rounded up and they should know we are looking for them. We are 
after them, and they will be punished," said Aidid. 
       He insisted his four-party Somali National Alliance would go 
after looters in the one-fourth of the country he claims to control 
in the south. 
       "Many countries are ready to help rebuild Somalia, but before 
they do, we have to show them that there is peace and stability -- 
and that should start right away," he said. 
       But he avoided mentioning the major bone of contention 
between him and Sahnoun -- the 3,000 armed troops the United Nations 
plans to send to Somalia to guard against looters, over his 
objections. 
       Much of the thousands of tons of food stolen from the United 
Nations and other agencies goes to feed the clan-based militias that 
support Aidid. U.N. and private aid officials say if the looting is 
halted and the fighters are not fed, their loyalty will evaporate. 
       As many as 2 million of Somalia's 6.5 million people are at 
risk of starvation if food doesn't reach them immediately, aid 
officials have said. 
       Only last week, Sahnoun warned that Aidid would be personally 
responsible for the death of thousands of Somalis if he continued to 
block the deployment of the additional U.N. troops. 
       On Friday, the U.N. envoy muted his adversarial tone at his 
first joint public appearance with the Somali warlord. 
       Sahnoun, a garland of pink bougainvillea draped around his 
neck and a light blue U.N. baseball cap perched on his head, told 
the crowd a "small minority" was trying to jeopardize moves toward 
peace and unity. 
       "You people should help the leaders to get rid of them. It is 
very important because the whole world is watching," the Algerian 
diplomat said. 
       "We in the U.N. will bring the meals you need -- and you, 
with your unity ... will get rid of those people who are trying to 
create problems,"  said. "We can build a new Somalia." 
       The crowd cheered Sahnoun, interrupted his translated speech 
to sing "Today is a great day -- today we are free," from a popular 
Somali song, and clapped vigorously when Sahnoun used the Somali 
word `Nabat,' which means security. 
       Aidid refuses to sit down with his chief rival, Ali Mahdi 
Mohamed, the lawless country's nominal interim president, who 
controls a small section of the capital, Mogadishu, and little else. 
       Their conflict, fueled by numerous clan rivalries, has 
claimed tens of thousands of casualties and flattened the capital. 
It is the leading cause of the famine. 
       And while Aidid spoke Friday of rebuilding Somalia, for 
months he has refused to let in more than 500 armed U.N. troops to 
guard food shipments, claiming the expanded force would infringe on 
Somalia's sovereignty, and that he and his 6,000 troops can control 
the banditry. 
       As Aidid and Sahnoun pleaded for peace, clan rivals shot at a 
warehouse of the International Committee of the Red Cross in Baidoa, 
forcing the agency to cancel four U.S. flights delivering food to 
the southwestern town Friday afternoon. 
       For more than a month, American military aircraft have been 
delivering aid collected by humanitarian agencies to Somalia and to 
refugee camps in northeast Kenya, where many Somalis have fled. 
       U.S. planes Friday delivered nearly 86 tons of food to Baidoa 
for the U.N. World Food Program, said Army Lt. Col. Robert Donnelly, 
43, of Suffern, N.Y. 
       President Bush's special coordinator for humanitarian relief, 
Andrew Natsios, warned Thursday that the United States would not 
help rebuild Somalia unless the warring factions agreed to the 
deployment of more armed U.N. troops. The United Nations on Thursday 
announced it had won agreement from warlords in northeastern Somalia 
to allow 750 armed U.N. troops from Canada guard the Gulf of Aden 
port of Bossasso. 


APn  10/02 1217  Somalia-US Doctor
WIth permission of The Associated Press. 

By EDITH M. LEDERER   
       BAIDOA, Somalia (AP) -- Dr. Jean Michel served in the U.S. 
Army during World War II, but never left the United States. Today, 
at age 71, she's on the front line for the first time, in this 
famine-stricken town where gun gangs rule. 
       "I've become a wild person," she said with a broad smile. 
"I'm not frightened. I realize I could go home in a bag." 
       Rifle-toting Somalis frequently burst into Baidoa's only 
hospital demanding that Michel or a colleague operate on an injured 
comrade-in-arms. Gunfire is commonplace, at any hour. 
       For the widowed orthopedic surgeon with sparkling eyes, it is 
all part of the job -- and she isn't even getting paid. 
       It began when she received a letter from the Los Angeles-
based International Medical Corps saying it was desperate for 
orthopedic surgeons to go to Somalia. 
       Michel retired years ago after 38 years in orthopedics, the 
last 30 in Lompoc, Calif. She had been doing a little work at an 
Indian reservation and decided that it was not too late for a new 
challenge. 
       "I've been to the Third World before," she said. "I've never 
been to a war before. ... This is the first volunteer job I've done. 
It's just another thing to do." 
       Her first job was as a chemist. Then she became a 
meteorologist. In World War II, the Army sent her to study physical 
therapy and she worked as a therapist in Battle Creek, Mich. When 
she got out, she used the G.I. Bill to attend the University of 
Southern California Medical School. 
       In Somalia, she starts the day doing pullups on a tree in the 
yard of the medical compound. Then, she does sit-ups. After 
breakfast, she's usually the first out the door, ready to don her 
green surgical garb at a moment's notice. 
       Baidoa Hospital has no qualified Somali surgeons, so the 
International Medical Corps has put in a surgical team of doctors 
and nurses. Their main job has been handling gunshot wounds and 
accident cases. 
       The biggest eye-opener for Michel has been the primitive 
state of the surgery: she says it is equivalent to that practiced 
during the U.S. Civil War, with an added dose of antibiotics and 
intramuscular painkiller for surgery. 
       "We have no X-rays, lights, electricity or running water, and 
the cleanliness leaves a lot to be desired. We dip water out of an 
oil barrel to wash our hands," she said. 
       "There is no laboratory work except malaria smears and blood-
typing. I think we have one thermometer. We practice medicine by 
clinical expertise -- `He's hot!' or `He's cold!"' 
       Her greatest frustration has been the entrenched Somali 
opposition to amputation. 
       "So many of these people are nomads," she said. "If they 
don't have two legs, they choose to die rather than have an 
amputation." 
       She spoke of a 70-year-old man with three children who were 
wounded in a bomb blast. One child was hit below the calf and the 
leg now was useless. 
       "But the father is determined he's not going to let us 
amputate."
       "I get the feeling life is cheap," she said. "I've seen 
people die, and parents and relatives show no emotion." 
       "You want to help people. But in the long run, it makes you 
wonder whether you're doing the right thing if you save these people 
and you have a bigger and better famine in 10 years. What have you 
done?" 
       Still, she has not given up. Her month here is almost 
finished. She is going home to California. But she is coming back 
here in November. 


APn  10/03 1537  Somalia-Ireland
Use with permission of The Associated Press.

MOGADISHU, Somalia (AP) -- Irish President Mary Robinson began a 
two-day visit to this starving nation Saturday with a stop in 
Baidoa, one of the towns hardest hit by the crisis. 
       "More than 100 people died while we were there," she said of 
her tour of feeding and therapeutic centers run by the Red Cross and 
the Irish agencies Concern and Goal. 
       "I wanted to present a positive image, so I smiled through my 
tears," she said after arriving in the capital, Mogadishu, where she 
met with U.N. special envoy Mohamed Sahnoun and the heads of various 
relief agencies. 
       "It is very hard to say how you feel after seeing something 
like that," said Mrs. Robinson, who is scheduled to address the 
United Nations this week. 
       Up to 350 people are dying each day in Baidoa despite an 
international relief operation. 
       Drought and clan warfare have claimed at least 100,000 lives, 
and aid officials say 2 million Somalis are in danger of starvation. 
       "But I did see some very positive results in the food 
kitchens," she said. 
       Mrs. Robinson said she will use her U.N. address urge the 
nations of the world to bring more relief to the suffering of 
Somalia. 
       "The world must take responsibility for what's happening 
here," she said. "The Somali people have a right to share our 
world." 
       She recalled that in the last century, the Choctaw Indians of 
Oklahoma, themselves being dispossessed from their native homeland, 
raised $700 for Irish famine victims. 
       "It is that kind of compassion we need here," she said. 

APn  10/01 1227  Somalia-Outcasts
Used with permission - The Associated Press.
By EDITH M. LEDERER   
       
       DEYNUUNAY, Somalia (AP) -- Momena Isak's grandmother 
abandoned her under a gnarled Tamarind tree after she could walk no 
more. 
       Now, the emaciated 14-year-old was all alone, unable to move 
because of a giant ulcer on her foot. 
       She had hobbled 7.5 miles from her home in Wareshe after her 
mother died of starvation, clinging to a walking stick, each step 
more painful than the last. 
       Her grandmother and other relatives, lured by the possibility 
of food some 9 miles away in the refugee-swollen town of Baidoa, 
kept walking. 
       Momena was left to fend for herself in this village of 
strangers, one of thousands of outcasts struggling to survive in 
Somalia, where famine born of civil war and drought has claimed some 
100,000 lives. 
       Mohamed Moalim Muktar, 35, the Deynuunay village head, says 
about 3,000 refugees have arrived in the area, more than its 
population. Many wanted to reach Baidoa but were too old, too weak 
or too sick to go any further. 
       Villagers have struggled to give them some food. The 
International Committee of the Red Cross has set up three kitchens 
in town, but there is only a little food, Muktar said. And there is 
no medicine and no shelter. 
       Before food started to trickle in, he said, 40 to 50 people 
were dying daily: "Nowadays, the deaths have decreased to 10 to 15 
every day." 
       Last week, the American charity World Vision opened a 
supplementary feeding city overlooking the Tamarind tree where 
Momena and about 40 others sat quietly under its feathery, spreading 
branches, many nursing similar ulcers. 
       Suzanne Banda, a 45-year-old public health nurse from 
Anchorage, Alaska, trying to organize the center, didn't have any 
medicine. But she had organized several Somalis who were patiently 
cleaning the badly infected ulcers with a solution of soap and 
disinfectant. 
       Severe malnutrition, said Ms. Banda, often turns minor 
infected wounds like Momena's into gaping ulcers that won't heal. 
       "A lot of these people are dying -- we can't save them all," 
she said. 
       Momena kept washing the ugly red ulcer on her foot with a 
piece of yellow soap the Somalia relief worker left her, hoping 
aloud that it would help her walk again soon. She said she was 
getting some food and wants to work when her foot gets better. 
       She said she might go to Baidoa but never wanted to see her 
grandmother or other relatives again. 
       "They left me alone when I was needy," she said. 
       Hareda Isak, 15, no relation to Momena but unable to walk 
because of a similar leg ulcer, shuffled through the dust toward the 
shade of the Tamarind tree, sitting on her backside and propelling 
herself with her arms. 
       "A stick went into my leg, and it became infected," she said. 
"I can't walk...I came only today. Maybe somebody can help me." 
       A few feet away, Habiba Omar Ali, who thought she was about 
70, studied the bullet wound about her ankle. It had just been 
cleaned, revealing exposed bone. She was shot seven months ago by 
troops loyal to ousted dictator Siad Barre. 
       "I can't walk," said Ms. Ali, who was wrapped in a dirty 
piece of torn cloth that was once red. "I was brought her by donkey 
cart ... I have no son, no daughter, no food, no clothes." 
       Howa Sheik Mohammed, 77, who could barely walk, sat nearby 
with her painfully thin legs draped over an empty oil can. 
       "All our camels were looted by clan militias," she said. "I 
was living among relatives but almost all those looking after me 
died. Only my brother's son is left." 
       Although thousands of refugees believe getting to Baidoa or 
Mogadishu, about 150 miles to the east, offers their best chance of 
survival, many displaced Somalis in both cities die of hunger every 
day. 
       In Baidoa, there is food for those able to walk. 
       But for weak and sick, like Ambio Ali, 45 who was huddled 
under a thin blanket in front of the city orphanage, coughing 
repeatedly, there is nothing. Her 10-year-old daughter, Edo 
Mohammed, a near-skeletal figure, sat staring a few feet away. A 
younger daughter had already died of starvation. 
       "Nobody feeds me, and I have no medicine," Mrs. Ali said. "I 
am too weak to go to one of the kitchens." 
       The situation has become so desperate that many Somalies 
simply do not have the energy or will to care for each other. And 
overtaxed relief workers just don't have the food or manpower to 
scour streets for outcasts too frail to fight for their daily 
rations. 
From: Jim Rosenfield <jnr@igc.apc.org>


APn  09/24 1311  Somalia-Revitalized Village
Copyright, 1992. The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
       
       By EDITH M. LEDERER
       Associated Press Writer
       HOBISHOWLE, Somalia (AP) -- Ten days ago, this remote bush 
village was nearly deserted, its hungry residents crowding bigger 
towns in search of food. Now, 1,500 have returned, lured by the 
first truckload of maize -- and hope that more will come.
       "Many people left the village because they had nothing to 
eat, and those who stayed were eating animal skins," said Abdulai 
Shek Ahmed, 45, supervisor of the food distribution and a member of 
the village council. "If we get regular food supplies, more and more 
people will come home."
       What happened in Hobishowle (pronounced hoh-bee-SHOW-lee) is 
typical of dozens of villages in southern Somalia: civil war and 
famine drove those who could walk to overcrowded towns with poor 
sanitation, not enough water, very limited food and rampant disease.
       A major goal of relief agencies working in the region is to 
return these wandering Somalis to their villages -- and to keep 
those who are there from leaving -- by giving them food and seeds.
       "By us going in, we brought back 1,500 people," said Phoebe 
Fraser, 26, of Melbourne, team leader of CARE Australia, which 
provided the truckload of maize. "This means we have a target group 
motivated to work in the community."
       Ms. Fraser, the daughter of former Australian Prime Minister 
Malcolm Fraser, said Hobishowle is one of six villages that CARE 
plans to keep providing with food. Two others are already receiving 
regular deliveries.
       "In Hobishowle," she said, "we also plan to repair the 
windmill, open a feeding center and clinic, provide shelter material 
and seeds, and fix their water supply."
       None of this welcome news, however, had reached Hobishowle, 
which is 40 miles and a two-hour drive down an often-disappearing, 
dusty road from Baidoa, the focal point of the famine where CARE's 
office is located. It is 150 miles northwest of Mogadishu, the 
capital.
       On the winding desert track leading to Hobishowle, about 60 
conical thatched huts remain deserted, one with an animal skeleton 
in its yard, another with ragged pieces of cloth apparently put out 
to dry on a now-brittle scrub bush.
       In the center of the village, made up of dozens of similar 
huts, the men had gathered to watch the distribution of the last of 
the maize. Only a handful of men work, and it was the major activity 
of the day.
       Women and children sat quietly in line, and men with branches 
acting as monitors brought small groups forward to the maize sack. A 
village elder scooped a pound of maize into cans, bowls, shoulder 
bags made of skin, and every conceivable plastic container.
       Noonai Ibrahim Ahmed, 45, whose husband died in the famine, 
said she received 2.2 pounds of maize, but had five children to 
feed.
       "We need food," she said. "I have been digging roots and then 
pounding them to try to save my family."
       Clutching a dirty plastic container, with his ration, Abdi 
Ibrahim, 40, worried aloud. "If the maize is exhausted, we won't 
survive."
       No one knows exactly how many people have died of starvation 
in Hobishowle.
       Ahmed, the food supervisor, said 6,000 villagers had lost 
their lives in the civil war and famine.
       Throughout Somalia, starvation caused by drought and warfare 
threatens 2 million people, and officials say up to half a million 
could die by Christmas unless they receive immediate food and 
medical care.
       "There has been serious hunger for six months," said Sheik 
Yusuf Sheik Ahmed, 50, the Muslim leader in the village. "We don't 
count. We just bury the dead."
       
       He urged the international community to provide more food and 
repair the village's broken water pump and asked Muslims to restore 
the looted mosque which needs new rugs, iron sheeting for a new 
roof, and a loudspeaker with batteries.
       "It is also the season of planting," council member Ahmed 
said. "We need seeds since we are farmers. We also need medicine and 
clothes."
       With the last of the maize quickly disappearing, everyone's 
thoughts were on food -- and where their next meal would come from.
       "Since the famine started, people have become very close to 
their religion," said Sheik Ahmed. "Always, they pray, begging God 
to feed them. Always, people come to the mosque and they beg God to 
give them better opportunities."

APn  09/25 1323  Somalia-North
Copyright, 1992. The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

By DIDRIKKE SCHANCHE
       NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) -- Rising clan tensions, looting and 
banditry threaten to turn into all-out war in Somalia's nominally 
independent north, aid officials and recent visitors to the region 
said Friday.
       The region, which calls itself the Somaliland Republic, 
seceded months after last year's overthrow of President Mohamed Siad 
Barre. It is a former British republic inhabited primarily by 
members of the large Isaaq clan, the backbone of the rebel Somali 
National Movement's 10-year war against Siad Barre.
       Siad Barre was finally toppled in January 1991 by rebels 
belonging to the United Somali Congress, which is dominated by the 
southern Hawiye clan.
       Somaliland, which is not recognized internationally, for 
months avoided the clan warfare that engulfed Somalia's south and 
caused the massive famine that is now killing thousands of people 
daily. More than 100,000 people have already died in southern 
Somalia, and up to 2 million more could perish without enough food, 
aid officials say.
       Now, differences between rival sub-clans in the north are 
growing in the region's capital, Hargeisa, which is essentially 
divided in two, according to recent visitors to the area.
       Looting and banditry, common on northern roads, have 
increased dramatically in Hargeisa in recent weeks, and the road 
from the airport into town has become a dangerous gantlet, aid 
officials said.
       Sporadic gunfire is heard in the city day and night, and the 
use of heavy weapons has increased. In the last two weeks, the rival 
clans have engaged in at least two extended nighttime exchanges of 
mortar and artillery fire, said Lucy Hannon, a reporter for the 
British Broadcasting Corp., who recently returned from three weeks 
in the region.
       Many aid officials contend that if southern Somalia had 
received more assistance last year as it emerged from Siad Barre's 
rule, it would not be the disaster it is today. Now they fear that 
northern Somalia could also descend into all-out clan warfare unless 
it receives large amounts of international assistance soon.
       "The bottom line is, the north isn't anything like as bad as 
the south, but the ingredients are there," Ben Foot of Save the 
Children Fund-UK said Friday at the group's regional headquarters in 
Nairobi.
       He said the main difference between the regions is food -- 
the south has none and must rely on international handouts, while 
the north continues to live off commercial imports.
       "All we need is a deterioration in the food source and I 
think we would have open warfare pretty rapidly," said Foot. He said 
nutritional surveys by Save the Children have shown only moderate 
malnutrition so far among children in the north.
       While some of the north's supplies are being imported through 
Berbera, on the Gulf of Aden, much of its food is from looted 
international aid stocks provided to Somali refugees living in camps 
in neighboring Ethiopia.
       But John Newman of the CARE relief agency said that although 
Hargeisa has grown increasingly tense, it is unlikely to blow up 
into all-out war.
       Following their decade-long rebellion to unseat Somalia's old 
government, the region's Isaaq clan is "pretty sick of fighting," 
Newman said. "They're just tired of it."

APn  09/26 1636  Somalia-Airlift
Copyright, 1992. The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

By CHEGE MBITIRU
Associated Press Writer
       NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) -- Relief workers took advantage of 
favorable weather Saturday to fly more than 285 tons of food, 
agricultural seed and other aid to the starving of Somalia.
       U.S. and other cargo planes were able to land in four 
southcentral towns cut off last week by seasonal rain in the 
normally drought-plagued country.
       "That will allow us to continue raising the food supply," 
said Francis Mwanza, a spokesman for the World Food Program in 
Nairobi.
       The seasonal rains, just now beginning, made dirt air strips 
too soft for the heavy cargo planes earlier in the week and 
sporadically disrupted the international airlift.
       More than 100,000 people have died from hunger and civil war 
in the Horn of Africa nation since rebels ousted President Mohammed 
Siad Barre in January 1991.
       The United Nations says 2 million more Somalis are on the 
brink of starvation, and some experts estimate a half million could 
die by Christmas.
       The United Nations warned of an impending catastrophe in East 
Africa last year, but not until this summer did governments respond 
to the crisis with large-scale shipments of food and supplies.
       On Saturday, American C-130 Hercules cargo planes delivered 
nearly 158 tons of rice, cooking oil, corn meal and cow pea seeds to 
Baidoa on Saturday.
       Army Lt. Col. Robert Donnelly, 43, of Suffern, N.Y., a 
spokesman for the U.S. operation, said the seeds were delivered on 
behalf of aid agencies trying to get Somali farmers to grow some of 
the food they need.
       Baidoa has been a focus of the international relief effort 
because of its high death rates -- up to 400 people, mostly 
children, die daily.
       The Americans, operating from the Kenya's Indian Ocean port 
of Mombasa, also sent six flights with more than 60 tons of cow pea 
seeds, rice and corn flour to Hoddur.
       Donnelly said the total of about 218 tons to Baidoa and 
Hoddur was the largest amount delivered to Somalia in a single day 
since the U.S. airlift began a month ago. American military planes 
have been ferrying supplies collected by relief agencies, and next 
month are to start bringing in 160,000 tons of food from the United 
States.
       The Canadian military, operating two C-130s, delivered 32 
tons of corn meal Saturday to Uegit, the World Food Program said. 
And the World Food Program delivered nearly 18 tons of food each to 
Baidoa, Uegit and nearby Sacowein aboard chartered C-130s, Mwanza 
said.
       The Americans also flew more than 13 tons of Unimix, a high 
protein mixture of corn, rice, wheat and oil, to Wajir in drought-
wracked northeastern Kenya.
       Hundreds of thousands of people in camps there -- including 
more than 250,000 Somali refugees -- are largely dependent on 
donated food.
       Looting of relief supplies, clan clashes and banditry have 
been the main obstacle to feeding Somalia, now carved into fiefdoms 
of warring clans.
       Continuing insecurity prevented any flights to the western 
town of Belet Huen, where an American plane was struck by a stray 
bullet eight days earlier.
       U.S. military planes have ferried 300 of 500 Pakistani 
soldiers being deployed to guard relief shipments at the port and 
airport of the capital, Mogadishu. The remainder are to arrive this 
week and are expected to be in position in about 10 days.
       The United Nations has authorized an additional 3,000 troops, 
but their deployment is opposed by a powerful warlord, Gen. Mohamed 
Farrah Aidid, whose militia has been accused of much of the looting.

APn  09/26 1840  Kenya-Somalia
Copyright, 1992. The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

By CHEGE MBITIRU
       NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) -- Three Kenyan air force men were 
detained in southwestern Somalia after their helicopter strayed over 
the border, the Foreign Ministry said Saturday.
       But the Somali National Alliance, a coalition of clans 
supporting Somali warlord Gen. Mohamed Farrah Aidid, said the 
helicopter was forced down Wednesday while attacking Bardera, 
Somalia, considered Aidid's regional headquarters.
       Defense officials have refused comment. On Friday, a U.N. 
source in Mogadishu, the Somali capital, said the United Nations was 
negotiating for the helicopter's return.
       Ministry spokesman James Simani said the aircraft and its 
crew were being held near Bardera, about 90 miles inside Somalia. 
"It is true one of our aircraft strayed into Somalia and we are 
trying to get it back together with the crew," Simani said.
       He said the helicopter had been en route from the border town 
of Mandera to the northeastern Kenyan town of Garissa, 260 miles 
southwest of Bardera.
       The Somali National Alliance also said in a statement the 
Kenyan air force bombed Bardera on Thursday in an attempt to rescue 
the crew and the helicopter, causing "lots of damage and deaths."
       Simani denied the charges.
       Mark Radford, a spokesman for Save the Children Fund-UK, said 
its relief workers in Bardera had not reported the alleged bombing 
in their daily radio contacts with the Nairobi office.
       The Somali National Alliance has frequently accused Kenya of 
supporting factions loyal to President Mohamed Siad Barre, whom they 
and other rebels ousted in January 1991. Clan-based civil war 
erupted after he fled.
       Siad Barre, who ruled Somalia for 21 years, fled to Kenya in 
April and stayed for about a month before being granted political 
asylum in Nigeria.
       Northeastern Kenya is inhabited by ethnic Somalis known to 
side with their respective clans in Somalia. 

Used with permission of Associated Press


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