From: hrcoord@igc.apc.org (Human Rights Coordinator)
Newsgroups: soc.rights.human
Subject: Re: News stories on African Famine
Date: 14 Sep 92 21:27:00 GMT
Nf-ID: #R:cdp:1476700469:cdp:1476700471:000:7737
Nf-From: cdp.UUCP!hrcoord    Sep 14 14:27:00 1992


/* Written  9:28 am  Sep 14, 1992 by jnr in cdp:hunger.general */
09/14 Disease, banditry maim Somali fugitives in Kenya
By Manoah Esipisu   

MANDERA, Kenya, Sept 14, Reuter - Hundreds of Somali refugees who
fled famine and war at home are dying slow, painful deaths from
disease in Kenya, a senior U.N. official said on Monday.   The
refugees are also prey to marauding bandits who kill them for
their few possessions and also attack camps dotted along the
frontier, officials say.   "Medical supplies are scarce and there
is a shortage of clean water which these thousands of displaced
people need," said Phillipe Chicheau, representative of the U.N.
High Commissioner for Refugees in Mandera, a town where the
frontiers of Ethiopia, Somalia and Kenya meet.   "Up to 400
Somali refugees are dying every week," Chicheau told reporters.
"Some 40 Ethiopian fugitives die each week."   

Kenya blames escalating crime in northern villages and in urban
centres on hundreds of guns filtering in with the flood of Somali
refugees.   British Development Minister Baroness Lynda Chalker
was moved almost to tears when she visited several dusty,
overcrowded, makeshift camps in Mandera and the nearby town of
Wajir, where some 380,000 Somali and 50,000 Ethiopian fugitives
live.   "What has happened out here is tragic," Chalker said.  
About two weeks ago, former Belgian prime minister Wilfried
Martens said after a visit to Mandera: "There is absolute misery
and human suffering of a scale not describable."   

The refugees live in makeshift tents made from sticks, branches,
leaves, sisal fibre and polythene paper provided by the UNHCR.
Most have no matresses, no beds, no blankets, no bed covers --
often they sleep on the soft but cold sand.   Whatever clothes
they brought into Kenya are in tatters. Most of the children walk
naked, or with just a wrapper round their loins.   Many children
just stare -- with hardly any expression of pain -- yet they have
deep and fresh gun wounds which worsen by the minute due to
medical neglect. Many are sure to die.   

Aid workers say many of the refugees enter Kenya weak and
dehydrated after travelling hundreds of kilometres (miles) in the
desert with neither water nor food.   When they cross the border
they find Kenyans emerging from two years of severe drought,
emaciated and needing emergency food aid as well.   Somali
refugees began flooding Kenya shortly after clan leaders General
Mohammed Farah Aideed and self-declared president Ali Mahdi
Mohammed turned on each other after helping to oust dictator
Mohammed Siad Barre in January 1991.   

The United States, Germany, Canada, France and Belgium have
joined U.N. and other international relief agencies in rushing
humanitarian aid to the famished and war-scarred country, and to
northern Kenya, before it is too late.   Kenya, which produces
food sufficient for its needs, this year made its first ever
appeal for food aid, saying that Somali refugees had put a severe
strain on the country's resources. .TOPIC
News stories on African Famine
09/14       Somalia: Guns And `Rambos' Are the Rule

By Keith B. Richburg  Washington Post Foreign Service

MOGADISHU, Somalia - One of the most dangerous corners in one of
the world's most dangerous capitals is the gun bazaar at the
central marketplace. It stands as a stark reminder of how
difficult the task will be to establish order in a country gone
gun-crazy.  The bazaar is actually just two tables in an
unimposing corner stall, tucked away at the end of a dusty
alleyway on the divided city's south side. It is a kind of
convenience store for heavy firepower, offering weapons from
handguns and grenades to assault rifles and grenade launchers.
Somali men, young and old, come here to have guns repaired,
replaced or reloaded.  

In a city awash with guns, firearms, it seems, come cheaper than
food and fuel. The U.S.-made M-16 assault rifle sells for about
$75. Much preferred by the young militiamen who swagger through
the town is the Russian-made AK-47, which sells for about $100.
It is perhaps a telling sign of the chaos in Somalia that the
price of ammunition recently has risen to 5,000 Somali shillings
- just under $1 - for a single bullet.  Foreigners typically are
greeted at the gun bazaar with a chorus of unmistakable and
menacing "clicking" sounds made by clips being fastened, rounds
being loaded and safety catches being released.  Adan Gedi Adan,
a Somali translator, tells a foreign journalist to relax, that
loading a round and clicking off the safety catch is the way
Somali men greet each other as friends. 

Since Somalia slid into anarchy, the translator said, the most
popular videotape at street stalls is "Rambo." "They love Rambo,"
said Adan, who six times has seen the movie that depicts the
violent, superhuman exploits of a fictional U.S. ex-commando.
"And, in the morning, they will try to practice what Rambo was
doing."  The job of imposing some kind of order on a country full
of gun-toting Rambos will fall first to a U.N. contingent of 500
Pakistani soldiers, whose mission it will be to secure the
Mogadishu port, the international airport and the warehouses
where relief supplies for the famine-wracked country are stored.
An advance team of 60 Pakistanis is due to arrive here Monday
aboard a U.S. transport plane.  The group's commander, Brig. Gen.
Imtiaz Shaheen, is under no illusions about the difficulty of the
mission. "This place is bad news," he told reporters here last
week.  Shaheen said his troops will be carrying only "small
arms," for self-defense and to secure strategic areas. "You don't
bring antitank weapons," he said, alluding to the U.N.
peace-keeping role. "You don't bring cannons and you don't bring
heavy offensive weapons."  

Shaheen said the most important piece of information for the
arriving troops will be a detailed explanation of the nature of
Somalia's gun-crazy society, so soldiers realize that not
everyone here who carries a gun is an enemy.  Shaheen, in an
interview, said he expects incidents to occur, citing as an
example the shooting two weeks ago of two U.N. observers by
someone who opened fire on their vehicle as they approached a
crude roadblock. "We have to be aware that those things can
happen," he said. "That doesn't mean you get . . . (angry) and
run away."  

The general said he is counting somewhat on the ability of the
clan leaders to exercise control over the young gunmen roaming
the streets. "I sincerely hope they will be able to enforce some
kind of control," he said.  Many relief workers here, however,
say that the clan warlords' ability to control gun-wielding
marauders is exaggerated. They pointed to the looting incident at
the capital's port last month in which three commandeered tanks
were used to support the looters.  Because of that episode -
which occurred despite assurances by clan leaders that the port
was secure - the International Committee of the Red Cross has
suspended new food shipments to the port. "Our ship is waiting
outside," said Dominik Stillhart of the Red Cross. He said the
ship was laden with 6,500 tons of relief goods, but would remain
15 miles offshore until the port could be made secure.  Many
believe that the international community must take the initiative
in trying to reestablish order in Somalia by first seeing that
the population is disarmed. Some have suggested trading food for
firearms or paying Somalis to turn in their weapons.  Rakiya
Omaar, the Somali executive director of Africa Watch, a human
rights group, said the only hope is for the United Nations to
disarm the population by force. "Somebody just has to take those
guns away," she said from London. "Force is the only thing these
young kids understand."