From: Human Rights Coordinator <hrcoord@igc.apc.org>
Newsgroups: soc.rights.human
Date: 25 Sep 92 12:21 PDT
Subject: Somalia's Children
Nf-ID: #N:cdp:1476700526:000:3417
Nf-From: cdp.UUCP!hrcoord    Sep 25 12:21:00 1992


From: Human Rights Coordinator <hrcoord>
Subject: Somalia's Children

/* Written  8:58 pm  Sep 24, 1992 by jnr in cdp:hunger.general */
APn  09/24 1358  Somalia

Copyright, 1992. The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

By DIDRIKKE SCHANCHE

Associated Press Writer

NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) -- Seasonal rains are increasing the death toll
among Somalia's starving, particularly children, relief officials said
Thursday.

Mark Stirling, Somalia representative of the U.N. Children's Fund,
said the arrival of the rainy weather earlier this month can be
measured in the number of corpses collected daily in the hardest-hit
towns.

"The first indication of the rains was the number of children's bodies
piled up in Baidoa," Stirling said of a town 150 miles northwest of
Somalia's capital, Mogadishu. "The death rate went from 20 to 60."

Stirling spoke at a news conference given by actress and UNICEF
goodwill ambassador Audrey Hepburn, who visited towns and refugee
camps in Somalia and nearby Kenya earlier this week.

Children already are among Somalia's most vulnerable. The French
humanitarian agency Doctors Without Borders estimates that 300,000
children under 5 -- one-quarter of that age group -- already have
died.

Starvation caused by drought and warfare threatens 2 million more
people, and officials say up to half a million could die by Christmas
unless they receive immediate food and medical care.

The rainy weather further threatens people already weakened by hunger
and disease, said Dominic Stillhart of the International Committee of
the Red Cross.

"Anything that makes their living conditions more difficult puts them
in greater danger," said Stillhart, who has just completed an 18-month
tour of duty in Somalia. "It just takes a little to make them die."

The rains also hamper international efforts to airlift food by soaking
rural dirt airstrips and making them unable to bear the weight of
planes.

Downpours this week forced the suspension of relief flights by
American, Canadian, German and privately chartered aircraft to the
central and southern towns of Baidoa, Bardera, Hoddur and Uegit.

The rainy season generally lasts through October -- until mid-November
at the outside -- and air dropping may be the only way to deliver food
for now, said Brenda Barton, a spokeswoman for the U.N. World Food
Program.

The effort to feed Somalia's starving has been hampered since the
outset by widespread banditry and looting.

Marauding gunmen pounce on food supplies and deliveries, and the
lawless acts have increased as efforts to address the catastrophe
intensify.

Somalia has dissolved into anarchy since dictator Mohamed Siad Barre
was ousted in January 1991. Rival clans have been fighting for power
since then.

Some aid officials estimate as much as half of the 180,000 tons of
food delivered to Somalia this year has been stolen, and more than a
dozen relief workers have been killed or wounded.

The last soldiers of a 500-man U.N. force from Pakistan are due to
arrive by Monday, to guard food at Mogadishu's port and airport.

The U.N. Security Council has authorized the deployment of an
additional 3,000 troops to protect humanitarian shipments and workers
elsewhere in Somalia, but the plan has been blocked by the nation's
main warlord, Gen. Mohamed Farrah Aidid. 
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Used with permission of Associated Press