From: Jim Rosenfield <jnr@igc.apc.org>
Newsgroups: soc.culture.african
Date: 05 Oct 92 21:35 PDT
Subject: Re: 9/22 News Stories on Hunger
Nf-ID: #R:cdp:1471700135:cdp:1471700137:000:3763
Nf-From: cdp.UUCP!jnr    Oct  5 21:35:00 1992


/* Written 11:19 pm  Sep 22, 1992 by jnr in cdp:hunger.general */
 
APn  09/22 0110  Somalia-Hepburn's Children

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

By EDITH LEDERER

Associated Press Writer

MOGADISHU, Somalia (AP) -- At the La Foole camp, crowded with
thousands of Somalis fleeing famine, nobody recognized the tall, thin
actress with high cheekbones.

It didn't bother her a bit.

Audrey Hepburn greeted mothers and children in English, French and
Italian on Monday. She picked up several youngsters. One deaf mother
of a premature baby, lying in bed in the clinic, blew her a kiss.

Hepburn bent down to hold the hand of a painfully thin little girl,
who wore a piece of bleached cloth and was sucking her thumb.

"I want to take her home," she said. "I want to pick her up -- but I'm
afraid she'll break."

For Hepburn, who became famous for performances in such films as
"Breakfast at Tiffany's," "Roman Holiday" and "My Fair Lady," movies
have long since taken a back seat to places where children are
suffering.

Over the past six years, as a goodwill ambassador for UNICEF, Hepburn
has seen the effects of civil war, disaster and famine in Ethiopia,
Sudan, Bangladesh, Vietnam and Latin America -- especially on their
youngest and most vulnerable citizens.

"How can you not ... do something for somebody who needs help? I grew
up that way -- through five years of war," during World War II, she
said as she toured Mogadishu and saw youngsters with protruding ribs
and matchstick limbs.

She has traveled through Europe, the United States, Canada, Australia
and New Zealand raising money for UNICEF programs for needy children.

"The only purpose I can serve is to be yet another witness," she said
in an interview. "But I have the advantage of being able to speak to
people, whether it's 800 businessmen or 500 women, to tell them what
I've seen."

For the past two years, she has been speaking out about the famine in
Somalia and lobbying to come to Mogadishu, but the trip was delayed
until this week on security grounds.

Several bursts of gunfire near Medina Hospital during her visit
accentuated the continued instability of Somalia, which is run by
feuding warlords and roving bands of heavily armed teen-agers.

Undeterred, she visited feeding centers, hospitals, the port and U.S.
troops, and discussed ways to speed up relief shipments.

She was to fly today to Baidoa and Bardera, among western Somali towns
hardest hit by famine.

Drought and warfare have combined to kill more than 100,000 Somalis,
and U.N. officials say 2 million more are at risk of starvation.

Normally, Hepburn said, she visits a country's political leaders "and
I remind them of their children."

But in Somalia there is no government, just anarchy.

"It's incredible the devastation over two years," she said, "But civil
war is the most destructive form of conflict. It's the ugliest, and as
always the first to pay are the children."

In the camps, relief workers told her they needed more food, water and
medicine. At the hospital, surgeons said they needed more intravenous
fluids and antibiotics.

At La Foole, more than 3,600 Somalis live in huts made of twigs and
topped with bits of green plastic.

Yusuf Ali, the camp food coordinator, told Hepburn people get two
meals a day of gruel, rice and oil, each with about 400 calories.

On the blackboard of a makeshift classroom, where about 200 youngsters
were learning their ABCs, someone had written in English: "U.S. -- We
Somali children need peace, food and knowledge."

Hepburn, who still managed to look elegant in a peach-colored T-shirt,
khaki pants and sneakers, picked up a piece of pink chalk and added:
"And love." 
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