From: vamg6792@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu (Mbanane)
Subject: UPI: Starvation from Somalia throughout Africa
Organization: University of Illinois at Urbana
Date: Tue, 15 Sep 1992 22:23:47 GMT



	WASHINGTON (UPI) -- Relief experts said Monday the starvation in
Somalia is beginning to emerge in other parts of Africa and warned that
the lives of nearly 60 million Africans are in danger.
	``Not only is the continent experiencing the worst drought of the
century, civil wars in Somalia and Mozambique are compounding the
situation,'' said David Beckmann, president of Bread for the World. 
``The lives of nearly 60 million are in danger,'' he added.
	Bread for the World, founded in 1972 by a group of Protestants and
Catholics in New York City, now has some 45,000 members who lobby
Congress to bring about changes in U.S. policies to address hunger and
poverty.
	InterAction, a coalition of 136 international humanitarian agencies,
reported that as many as 23 million risk starvation in eastern Africa,
30 million in southern Africa and 7 million in western Africa. The
coalition said the American public is providing only 3 percent of the
assistance they contributed during the 1984-85 African famine.
	The group of experts just returned from Africa. They said between 2,
000 and 5,000 people die daily in Somalia despite emergency relief and
drought assessment. They said 3.1 million people are at immediate risk
of starvation in Mozambique.
	In the past 12 months, they said, 25 percent of children under 5
years old died in Somalia; 200 children die of starvation daily in the
nation's capital of Mogadishu. Another 60 percent of Somalia's children
suffer from extreme malnutrition.
	In southern Africa, 40 percent to 90 percent of this year's crops
have been destroyed by drought, while in Zimbabwe 2 million cattle are
expected to die by November because of the drought.
	In Mozambique, 1 million people have died as a result of war in the
past decade, the group said.
	``The current situation in Somalia is horrifying,'' said Philip
Johnston, president of CARE, the international relief organization. ``I
saw children whose thighs and legs were no bigger in circumference than
my wrist. Their bodies had no muscle mass, only bone and skin covering
it. It is tremendously difficult to get food through to Somalia's
desperately hungry people.''
	The coalition called for the United States to play a ``much more
active role in seeking peace in both Somalia and Mozambique,'' adding
that President Bush ``should encourage the immediate deployment of 3,500
U.N. security forces into Somalia'' to help relief efforts in the
countries.
	They also urged the Senate to approve $80 million of disaster aid for
Africa to meet emegrency needs for seeds, water and transportation.
	``As many as 30 million people are at immediate risk of malnutrition,
disease or starvation in southern Africa as a result of what may be the
most severe drought of the century,'' the coalition said. ``The United
Nations estimates that the crisis in southern Africa could eventually
affect a staggering 115 million people if relief and preventative
measures aren't sufficient.''
	Sharon Pauling, Africa policy analyst for Bread for the World, said,
``Abhorrent conditions which we tolerate for Africans are conditions we
clearly are not willing to tolerate for ourselves or for Europeans.
We've become comfortable with the notion that Africans can adjust to
dehumanizing conditions. This hypocrisy is inadmissable as the world has
the capacity to prevent famine.''