From: Jim Rosenfield <jnr@igc.apc.org>
Newsgroups: soc.culture.african
Date: 05 Oct 92 21:36 PDT
Subject: Re: 9/25 Wire stories on hunger
Nf-ID: #R:cdp:1471700147:cdp:1471700150:000:3481
Nf-From: cdp.UUCP!jnr    Oct  5 21:36:00 1992


/* Written  8:37 pm  Sep 25, 1992 by jnr in cdp:hunger.general */
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."

----------------------------------------------------------
Used with permission of Associated Press




Xref: sparky soc.culture.african:5010 sanet.talk.politics:45 apc.reg.safrica:21