___________________________________________________________________ S O M A L I A N E W S U P D A T E ____________________________________________________________________ No 22 September 22, 1992. ISSN 1103-1999 ____________________________________________________________________ Somalia News Update is published irregularly via electronic mail and fax. Questions can be directed to antbh@strix.udac.uu.se or to fax number +46-18-151160. All material is free to quote as long as the source is stated. ____________________________________________________________________ From: Human Rights Coordinator /* Written 12:09 am Sep 19, 1992 by newsdesk in cdp:ips.englibrary */ Copyright Inter Press Service 1992, all rights reserved. Permission to re- print within 7 days of original date only with permission from 'newsdesk'. ~Title: SOMALIA: AID ARRIVING IN TOWNS, SO ARE THE STARVING an inter press service feature by horace awori baidoa, somalia, sep 16 (ips)- outside a feeding centre in this central somalia town, a 15-year-old boy lies dying under a thorn bush, too weak to make the last few steps into the centre. the parents of the boy who are themselves a bag of bones, had gone into the feeding centre with his even worse affected brothers. ''he hopes they will come for him when they have had something for the others'', an interpreter says of the naked boy lying surrounded by human waste. inside the feeding centre run by the irish non-governmental agency 'concern' were more excruciating images of the starving and dying. this is the town where the u.n. childrens fund (unicef) was reporting deaths of more than 3,000 each day. ''the situation has improved somewhat now'', says rupert lewis from guyana, the unicef emergency aid co-ordinator and logistics officer in baidoa. but he said the situation was still bad because with word of the arrival of desperately needed food, people were flooding into the town, swelling its population from 20,000 to 85,000. ''the death rate is still alarming'' says another unicef official, ian macleod. today, over 280 children will die here, in a town full of people who are walking skeletons. ngos save the children fund, unicef, concern, medicins sans frontiers (msf), and the international committee of the red cross (icrc) are running more than 30 feeding kitchens reaching 30,000 people. for the past two weeks there has been a daily delivery by the world food programme (wfp) of 30 tonnes. but it is not enough. it all seems a question of so little done, so much to do. for the very malnourished, there is little hope. ''they are not getting enough food and medicines. by the time they do, they are too weak and sick to eat and so die'', a local somali and former geologist, dr nur sheikh ibrahim notes. there is also mounting concern over the inadequate supply of drugs. apart from food and medical supplies, baidoa's other acute problem is that of water. with only one badly polluted well to serve the whole town, the relief agencies are urgently planning the sinking of bore-holes. (more/ips) somalia: aid (2) the hinterland is in an even more acute state. concern and the msf are spreading into areas not reached before and supplies are being trucked 60 km inland from baidoa, 250 km west of the capital mogadishu. the wfp and the icrc have agreed to work together for another 120 days to deliver a total of 52,000 tonnes of food a month to the famine stricken country. by the end of the period, more than 200,000 tonnes of food will have been delivered to feed more than three million people who are in urgent need. most of the food will be delivered by ship to mogadishu and other ports like kismayu and merca while some relief supplies will be taken in overland convoys across the kenyan border into the southernmost part of somalia. airdrops of food have also started in isolated towns and villages. a spokesman of the wfp said that all these measures are aimed at arresting the flow of thousands of starving people leaving their homes and migrating to towns like baidoa, where food airlifts started in mid-august. the wfp airdrops are not random. the agency has placed teams at drop zones to work with local elders on delivery arrangements and to manage and assist in the distribution of the food. according to the icrc/wfp plan for villages of up to 1,000 people one drop should last a month. for villages and towns with more people, there will be supplies to last 10-days. this icrc and wfp initiative is among the things that dr ibrahim calls for. ''we should feed people in their villages not here in baidoa and the feeding programme should also involve seeds so that the people can begin to plant and be self-sufficient again. equal attention should be paid to long term solutions''. but secretary for rehabilitation and reconstruction for one of the fueding factions, the united somali congress (usc) mohamed ahmed noor, also points out that more than food aid is needed. after two-years of chaos, the rehabilitation of the private and public sectors is needed, he says. ''only this would get us out of the mess. we are in a country where nobody works, there is no production of any kind and the state farms have been destroyed.'' he adds somalis are being fed just to stay alive '' as if we live to eat. we need to be restored to a level where we eat and live to work''. the wrangling will continue over what type of aid is required. for the young boy awaiting his parents it was just food. when they returned, he had died. 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