____________________________________________________________________ S O M A L I A N E W S U P D A T E ____________________________________________________________________ No 30 October 6, 1992. ISSN 1103-1999 ____________________________________________________________________ Somalia News Update is published irregularly via electronic mail. Questions can be driected to antbh@strix.udac.uu.se or to fax number +46-18-151160. All material is free too quote as long as the source is stated. This issue contains AP news wires from the past two weeks, kindly supplied by Jim Rosenfield */ APn 09/27 1204 Horn-Country Thumbnails Copyright, 1992. The Associated Press. All rights reserved. Here is a country-by-country outline of the drought and refugee crisis in the Horn of Africa: SOMALIA -- Driven by anarchy and hunger, many of Somalia's 6 million people are on the move. Experts say that is a big reason so many of them are dying. Relief agencies are trying to deliver food directly to villages rather than focusing on centralized aid camps. The idea is to keep people at home rather than waste their energy in desperate, often fruitless, searches for food. Most camps for Somalis outside their country have well-organized operations by now, but the problem is overwhelming. More than 300,000 Somalis are sheltering in Kenya, 400,000 in Ethiopia. ETHIOPIA -- An estimated 1.5 million Ethiopians died during the civil war that ousted a Marxist government in 1991 and from drought and forced relocations of people that overwhelmed the relief system. In addition to caring for 400,000 Somali refugees, Ethiopia's struggling young government must see to hundreds of thousands of its own people displaced first by the civil war and then the unrest in neighboring Somalia. In the Ogaden, nomads afflicted by three years of drought have become wards of relief agencies. SUDAN -- Nobody knows how many people died in a horrendous drought in western Sudan in 1984. By 1988, five years after civil war began, deprivation forced hundreds of thousands of people to abandon their homes to seek food. At least 250,000 Sudanese died; some Western relief workers put the figure at 500,000. Both government and rebels have used food as a weapon, barring shipments for political reasons. Relief planes have been shot down, river convoys, trucks and trains attacked. KENYA -- In little over a year, Kenya's refugee population has skyrocketed from 14,000 to almost 400,000, mostly because of anarchy in Somalia. At the same time, severe drought over wide areas of northern and eastern Kenya have put many Kenyan nomads, mainly ethnic Somalis, in peril for the first time. Used with permission of Associated Press APn 09/27 1206 Horn-Relief Workers Copyright, 1992. The Associated Press. All rights reserved. DAGAHALEY CAMP, Kenya (AP) -- Habiba Ali, 20, lovingly holds her son Mohamed as a doctor with a large syringe feeds him through a nasal tube. The 2-year-old is little larger than a newborn. Like so many others in this eastern Kenya camp for Somali refugees, Mohamed may have arrived at the feeding center too late. Scores of tiny mounds in a graveyard 300 yards away attest to his probable fate. "We have social workers who go tent to tent, finding kids whose mothers wouldn't bring them in for one reason or another," said Eddie Kangara, a Kenyan official with CARE International who supervises the camp. "It's often too late." Elodie Martel, a Montreal native who is in charge of social services for CARE's camps in Kenya, said many of the Somali women, traumatized by the anarchy they left behind to seek safety, are desperately afraid of authority figures, even doctors. But she also spoke of the ultimate desperation of some parents. "She will come and say, `My child died.' But really, the mother or father has pushed with one hand over the child's eyes, and put the other over the mouth," Miss Martel said. "I've talked to doctors who have seen it done. They say the baby doesn't fight at all. "Apparently they figure why give medicine to my child -- she's hopeless -- when others can be saved." No matter how professional the charity worker, the pressure of seeing dead children every day is telling. Riding on the back of a pickup truck into Liboi camp just east of Dagahaley, regional camp coordinator Gail Neudorf of Vancouver, B.C., pointed to a group of men standing and talking. "Look at those men. Do you see anybody malnourished? No," she said. "That's because the men eat first, the women eat next, then the children eat -- if there's anything left after the animals eat. That's what really hurts: The animals eat before the children. "It makes sense for survival in the nomadic culture. But not now." -------------------------------------------------------------- Used with permission of Associated Press APn 10/02 1633 Somalia Copyright, 1992. The Associated Press. All rights reserved. By EDITH M. LEDERER MOGADISHU, Somalia (AP) -- Somalia's chief warlord embraced a U.N. envoy at a public rally and appealed for peace Friday, but left uncertain whether he would oppose the use of U.N. troops to protect food shipments from bands of armed looters. At a rally of more than 1,000 supporters, Gen. Mohamed Farrah Aidid praised the efforts of the U.N. special envoy to Somalia, Mohamed Sahnoun, to unite a nation where civil war and famine have claimed at least 100,000 lives. Dozens of armed gunmen surrounded Aidid on the dusty military parade ground, and vehicles mounted with artillery and anti-aircraft guns were parked nearby as he called for an end to violence and the theft of relief supplies. "The looters and killers who murder in cold blood should be rounded up and they should know we are looking for them. We are after them, and they will be punished," said Aidid. He insisted his four-party Somali National Alliance would go after looters in the one-fourth of the country he claims to control in the south. "Many countries are ready to help rebuild Somalia, but before they do, we have to show them that there is peace and stability -- and that should start right away," he said. But he avoided mentioning the major bone of contention between him and Sahnoun -- the 3,000 armed troops the United Nations plans to send to Somalia to guard against looters, over his objections. Much of the thousands of tons of food stolen from the United Nations and other agencies goes to feed the clan-based militias that support Aidid. U.N. and private aid officials say if the looting is halted and the fighters are not fed, their loyalty will evaporate. As many as 2 million of Somalia's 6.5 million people are at risk of starvation if food doesn't reach them immediately, aid officials have said. Only last week, Sahnoun warned that Aidid would be personally responsible for the death of thousands of Somalis if he continued to block the deployment of the additional U.N. troops. On Friday, the U.N. envoy muted his adversarial tone at his first joint public appearance with the Somali warlord. Sahnoun, a garland of pink bougainvillea draped around his neck and a light blue U.N. baseball cap perched on his head, told the crowd a "small minority" was trying to jeopardize moves toward peace and unity. "You people should help the leaders to get rid of them. It is very important because the whole world is watching," the Algerian diplomat said. "We in the U.N. will bring the meals you need -- and you, with your unity ... will get rid of those people who are trying to create problems," said. "We can build a new Somalia." The crowd cheered Sahnoun, interrupted his translated speech to sing "Today is a great day -- today we are free," from a popular Somali song, and clapped vigorously when Sahnoun used the Somali word `Nabat,' which means security. Aidid refuses to sit down with his chief rival, Ali Mahdi Mohamed, the lawless country's nominal interim president, who controls a small section of the capital, Mogadishu, and little else. Their conflict, fueled by numerous clan rivalries, has claimed tens of thousands of casualties and flattened the capital. It is the leading cause of the famine. And while Aidid spoke Friday of rebuilding Somalia, for months he has refused to let in more than 500 armed U.N. troops to guard food shipments, claiming the expanded force would infringe on Somalia's sovereignty, and that he and his 6,000 troops can control the banditry. As Aidid and Sahnoun pleaded for peace, clan rivals shot at a warehouse of the International Committee of the Red Cross in Baidoa, forcing the agency to cancel four U.S. flights delivering food to the southwestern town Friday afternoon. For more than a month, American military aircraft have been delivering aid collected by humanitarian agencies to Somalia and to refugee camps in northeast Kenya, where many Somalis have fled. U.S. planes Friday delivered nearly 86 tons of food to Baidoa for the U.N. World Food Program, said Army Lt. Col. Robert Donnelly, 43, of Suffern, N.Y. President Bush's special coordinator for humanitarian relief, Andrew Natsios, warned Thursday that the United States would not help rebuild Somalia unless the warring factions agreed to the deployment of more armed U.N. troops. The United Nations on Thursday announced it had won agreement from warlords in northeastern Somalia to allow 750 armed U.N. troops from Canada guard the Gulf of Aden port of Bossasso. APn 10/02 1217 Somalia-US Doctor WIth permission of The Associated Press. By EDITH M. LEDERER BAIDOA, Somalia (AP) -- Dr. Jean Michel served in the U.S. Army during World War II, but never left the United States. Today, at age 71, she's on the front line for the first time, in this famine-stricken town where gun gangs rule. "I've become a wild person," she said with a broad smile. "I'm not frightened. I realize I could go home in a bag." Rifle-toting Somalis frequently burst into Baidoa's only hospital demanding that Michel or a colleague operate on an injured comrade-in-arms. Gunfire is commonplace, at any hour. For the widowed orthopedic surgeon with sparkling eyes, it is all part of the job -- and she isn't even getting paid. It began when she received a letter from the Los Angeles- based International Medical Corps saying it was desperate for orthopedic surgeons to go to Somalia. Michel retired years ago after 38 years in orthopedics, the last 30 in Lompoc, Calif. She had been doing a little work at an Indian reservation and decided that it was not too late for a new challenge. "I've been to the Third World before," she said. "I've never been to a war before. ... This is the first volunteer job I've done. It's just another thing to do." Her first job was as a chemist. Then she became a meteorologist. In World War II, the Army sent her to study physical therapy and she worked as a therapist in Battle Creek, Mich. When she got out, she used the G.I. Bill to attend the University of Southern California Medical School. In Somalia, she starts the day doing pullups on a tree in the yard of the medical compound. Then, she does sit-ups. After breakfast, she's usually the first out the door, ready to don her green surgical garb at a moment's notice. Baidoa Hospital has no qualified Somali surgeons, so the International Medical Corps has put in a surgical team of doctors and nurses. Their main job has been handling gunshot wounds and accident cases. The biggest eye-opener for Michel has been the primitive state of the surgery: she says it is equivalent to that practiced during the U.S. Civil War, with an added dose of antibiotics and intramuscular painkiller for surgery. "We have no X-rays, lights, electricity or running water, and the cleanliness leaves a lot to be desired. We dip water out of an oil barrel to wash our hands," she said. "There is no laboratory work except malaria smears and blood- typing. I think we have one thermometer. We practice medicine by clinical expertise -- `He's hot!' or `He's cold!"' Her greatest frustration has been the entrenched Somali opposition to amputation. "So many of these people are nomads," she said. "If they don't have two legs, they choose to die rather than have an amputation." She spoke of a 70-year-old man with three children who were wounded in a bomb blast. One child was hit below the calf and the leg now was useless. "But the father is determined he's not going to let us amputate." "I get the feeling life is cheap," she said. "I've seen people die, and parents and relatives show no emotion." "You want to help people. But in the long run, it makes you wonder whether you're doing the right thing if you save these people and you have a bigger and better famine in 10 years. What have you done?" Still, she has not given up. Her month here is almost finished. She is going home to California. But she is coming back here in November. APn 10/03 1537 Somalia-Ireland Use with permission of The Associated Press. MOGADISHU, Somalia (AP) -- Irish President Mary Robinson began a two-day visit to this starving nation Saturday with a stop in Baidoa, one of the towns hardest hit by the crisis. "More than 100 people died while we were there," she said of her tour of feeding and therapeutic centers run by the Red Cross and the Irish agencies Concern and Goal. "I wanted to present a positive image, so I smiled through my tears," she said after arriving in the capital, Mogadishu, where she met with U.N. special envoy Mohamed Sahnoun and the heads of various relief agencies. "It is very hard to say how you feel after seeing something like that," said Mrs. Robinson, who is scheduled to address the United Nations this week. Up to 350 people are dying each day in Baidoa despite an international relief operation. Drought and clan warfare have claimed at least 100,000 lives, and aid officials say 2 million Somalis are in danger of starvation. "But I did see some very positive results in the food kitchens," she said. Mrs. Robinson said she will use her U.N. address urge the nations of the world to bring more relief to the suffering of Somalia. "The world must take responsibility for what's happening here," she said. "The Somali people have a right to share our world." She recalled that in the last century, the Choctaw Indians of Oklahoma, themselves being dispossessed from their native homeland, raised $700 for Irish famine victims. "It is that kind of compassion we need here," she said. APn 10/01 1227 Somalia-Outcasts Used with permission - The Associated Press. By EDITH M. LEDERER DEYNUUNAY, Somalia (AP) -- Momena Isak's grandmother abandoned her under a gnarled Tamarind tree after she could walk no more. Now, the emaciated 14-year-old was all alone, unable to move because of a giant ulcer on her foot. She had hobbled 7.5 miles from her home in Wareshe after her mother died of starvation, clinging to a walking stick, each step more painful than the last. Her grandmother and other relatives, lured by the possibility of food some 9 miles away in the refugee-swollen town of Baidoa, kept walking. Momena was left to fend for herself in this village of strangers, one of thousands of outcasts struggling to survive in Somalia, where famine born of civil war and drought has claimed some 100,000 lives. Mohamed Moalim Muktar, 35, the Deynuunay village head, says about 3,000 refugees have arrived in the area, more than its population. Many wanted to reach Baidoa but were too old, too weak or too sick to go any further. Villagers have struggled to give them some food. The International Committee of the Red Cross has set up three kitchens in town, but there is only a little food, Muktar said. And there is no medicine and no shelter. Before food started to trickle in, he said, 40 to 50 people were dying daily: "Nowadays, the deaths have decreased to 10 to 15 every day." Last week, the American charity World Vision opened a supplementary feeding city overlooking the Tamarind tree where Momena and about 40 others sat quietly under its feathery, spreading branches, many nursing similar ulcers. Suzanne Banda, a 45-year-old public health nurse from Anchorage, Alaska, trying to organize the center, didn't have any medicine. But she had organized several Somalis who were patiently cleaning the badly infected ulcers with a solution of soap and disinfectant. Severe malnutrition, said Ms. Banda, often turns minor infected wounds like Momena's into gaping ulcers that won't heal. "A lot of these people are dying -- we can't save them all," she said. Momena kept washing the ugly red ulcer on her foot with a piece of yellow soap the Somalia relief worker left her, hoping aloud that it would help her walk again soon. She said she was getting some food and wants to work when her foot gets better. She said she might go to Baidoa but never wanted to see her grandmother or other relatives again. "They left me alone when I was needy," she said. Hareda Isak, 15, no relation to Momena but unable to walk because of a similar leg ulcer, shuffled through the dust toward the shade of the Tamarind tree, sitting on her backside and propelling herself with her arms. "A stick went into my leg, and it became infected," she said. "I can't walk...I came only today. Maybe somebody can help me." A few feet away, Habiba Omar Ali, who thought she was about 70, studied the bullet wound about her ankle. It had just been cleaned, revealing exposed bone. She was shot seven months ago by troops loyal to ousted dictator Siad Barre. "I can't walk," said Ms. Ali, who was wrapped in a dirty piece of torn cloth that was once red. "I was brought her by donkey cart ... I have no son, no daughter, no food, no clothes." Howa Sheik Mohammed, 77, who could barely walk, sat nearby with her painfully thin legs draped over an empty oil can. "All our camels were looted by clan militias," she said. "I was living among relatives but almost all those looking after me died. Only my brother's son is left." Although thousands of refugees believe getting to Baidoa or Mogadishu, about 150 miles to the east, offers their best chance of survival, many displaced Somalis in both cities die of hunger every day. In Baidoa, there is food for those able to walk. But for weak and sick, like Ambio Ali, 45 who was huddled under a thin blanket in front of the city orphanage, coughing repeatedly, there is nothing. Her 10-year-old daughter, Edo Mohammed, a near-skeletal figure, sat staring a few feet away. A younger daughter had already died of starvation. "Nobody feeds me, and I have no medicine," Mrs. Ali said. "I am too weak to go to one of the kitchens." The situation has become so desperate that many Somalies simply do not have the energy or will to care for each other. And overtaxed relief workers just don't have the food or manpower to scour streets for outcasts too frail to fight for their daily rations. From: Jim Rosenfield APn 09/24 1311 Somalia-Revitalized Village Copyright, 1992. The Associated Press. All rights reserved. By EDITH M. LEDERER Associated Press Writer HOBISHOWLE, Somalia (AP) -- Ten days ago, this remote bush village was nearly deserted, its hungry residents crowding bigger towns in search of food. Now, 1,500 have returned, lured by the first truckload of maize -- and hope that more will come. "Many people left the village because they had nothing to eat, and those who stayed were eating animal skins," said Abdulai Shek Ahmed, 45, supervisor of the food distribution and a member of the village council. "If we get regular food supplies, more and more people will come home." What happened in Hobishowle (pronounced hoh-bee-SHOW-lee) is typical of dozens of villages in southern Somalia: civil war and famine drove those who could walk to overcrowded towns with poor sanitation, not enough water, very limited food and rampant disease. A major goal of relief agencies working in the region is to return these wandering Somalis to their villages -- and to keep those who are there from leaving -- by giving them food and seeds. "By us going in, we brought back 1,500 people," said Phoebe Fraser, 26, of Melbourne, team leader of CARE Australia, which provided the truckload of maize. "This means we have a target group motivated to work in the community." Ms. Fraser, the daughter of former Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser, said Hobishowle is one of six villages that CARE plans to keep providing with food. Two others are already receiving regular deliveries. "In Hobishowle," she said, "we also plan to repair the windmill, open a feeding center and clinic, provide shelter material and seeds, and fix their water supply." None of this welcome news, however, had reached Hobishowle, which is 40 miles and a two-hour drive down an often-disappearing, dusty road from Baidoa, the focal point of the famine where CARE's office is located. It is 150 miles northwest of Mogadishu, the capital. On the winding desert track leading to Hobishowle, about 60 conical thatched huts remain deserted, one with an animal skeleton in its yard, another with ragged pieces of cloth apparently put out to dry on a now-brittle scrub bush. In the center of the village, made up of dozens of similar huts, the men had gathered to watch the distribution of the last of the maize. Only a handful of men work, and it was the major activity of the day. Women and children sat quietly in line, and men with branches acting as monitors brought small groups forward to the maize sack. A village elder scooped a pound of maize into cans, bowls, shoulder bags made of skin, and every conceivable plastic container. Noonai Ibrahim Ahmed, 45, whose husband died in the famine, said she received 2.2 pounds of maize, but had five children to feed. "We need food," she said. "I have been digging roots and then pounding them to try to save my family." Clutching a dirty plastic container, with his ration, Abdi Ibrahim, 40, worried aloud. "If the maize is exhausted, we won't survive." No one knows exactly how many people have died of starvation in Hobishowle. Ahmed, the food supervisor, said 6,000 villagers had lost their lives in the civil war and famine. Throughout Somalia, starvation caused by drought and warfare threatens 2 million people, and officials say up to half a million could die by Christmas unless they receive immediate food and medical care. "There has been serious hunger for six months," said Sheik Yusuf Sheik Ahmed, 50, the Muslim leader in the village. "We don't count. We just bury the dead." He urged the international community to provide more food and repair the village's broken water pump and asked Muslims to restore the looted mosque which needs new rugs, iron sheeting for a new roof, and a loudspeaker with batteries. "It is also the season of planting," council member Ahmed said. "We need seeds since we are farmers. We also need medicine and clothes." With the last of the maize quickly disappearing, everyone's thoughts were on food -- and where their next meal would come from. "Since the famine started, people have become very close to their religion," said Sheik Ahmed. "Always, they pray, begging God to feed them. Always, people come to the mosque and they beg God to give them better opportunities." 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." APn 09/26 1636 Somalia-Airlift Copyright, 1992. The Associated Press. All rights reserved. By CHEGE MBITIRU Associated Press Writer NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) -- Relief workers took advantage of favorable weather Saturday to fly more than 285 tons of food, agricultural seed and other aid to the starving of Somalia. U.S. and other cargo planes were able to land in four southcentral towns cut off last week by seasonal rain in the normally drought-plagued country. "That will allow us to continue raising the food supply," said Francis Mwanza, a spokesman for the World Food Program in Nairobi. The seasonal rains, just now beginning, made dirt air strips too soft for the heavy cargo planes earlier in the week and sporadically disrupted the international airlift. More than 100,000 people have died from hunger and civil war in the Horn of Africa nation since rebels ousted President Mohammed Siad Barre in January 1991. The United Nations says 2 million more Somalis are on the brink of starvation, and some experts estimate a half million could die by Christmas. The United Nations warned of an impending catastrophe in East Africa last year, but not until this summer did governments respond to the crisis with large-scale shipments of food and supplies. On Saturday, American C-130 Hercules cargo planes delivered nearly 158 tons of rice, cooking oil, corn meal and cow pea seeds to Baidoa on Saturday. Army Lt. Col. Robert Donnelly, 43, of Suffern, N.Y., a spokesman for the U.S. operation, said the seeds were delivered on behalf of aid agencies trying to get Somali farmers to grow some of the food they need. Baidoa has been a focus of the international relief effort because of its high death rates -- up to 400 people, mostly children, die daily. The Americans, operating from the Kenya's Indian Ocean port of Mombasa, also sent six flights with more than 60 tons of cow pea seeds, rice and corn flour to Hoddur. Donnelly said the total of about 218 tons to Baidoa and Hoddur was the largest amount delivered to Somalia in a single day since the U.S. airlift began a month ago. American military planes have been ferrying supplies collected by relief agencies, and next month are to start bringing in 160,000 tons of food from the United States. The Canadian military, operating two C-130s, delivered 32 tons of corn meal Saturday to Uegit, the World Food Program said. And the World Food Program delivered nearly 18 tons of food each to Baidoa, Uegit and nearby Sacowein aboard chartered C-130s, Mwanza said. The Americans also flew more than 13 tons of Unimix, a high protein mixture of corn, rice, wheat and oil, to Wajir in drought- wracked northeastern Kenya. Hundreds of thousands of people in camps there -- including more than 250,000 Somali refugees -- are largely dependent on donated food. Looting of relief supplies, clan clashes and banditry have been the main obstacle to feeding Somalia, now carved into fiefdoms of warring clans. Continuing insecurity prevented any flights to the western town of Belet Huen, where an American plane was struck by a stray bullet eight days earlier. U.S. military planes have ferried 300 of 500 Pakistani soldiers being deployed to guard relief shipments at the port and airport of the capital, Mogadishu. The remainder are to arrive this week and are expected to be in position in about 10 days. The United Nations has authorized an additional 3,000 troops, but their deployment is opposed by a powerful warlord, Gen. Mohamed Farrah Aidid, whose militia has been accused of much of the looting. APn 09/26 1840 Kenya-Somalia Copyright, 1992. The Associated Press. All rights reserved. By CHEGE MBITIRU NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) -- Three Kenyan air force men were detained in southwestern Somalia after their helicopter strayed over the border, the Foreign Ministry said Saturday. But the Somali National Alliance, a coalition of clans supporting Somali warlord Gen. Mohamed Farrah Aidid, said the helicopter was forced down Wednesday while attacking Bardera, Somalia, considered Aidid's regional headquarters. Defense officials have refused comment. On Friday, a U.N. source in Mogadishu, the Somali capital, said the United Nations was negotiating for the helicopter's return. Ministry spokesman James Simani said the aircraft and its crew were being held near Bardera, about 90 miles inside Somalia. "It is true one of our aircraft strayed into Somalia and we are trying to get it back together with the crew," Simani said. He said the helicopter had been en route from the border town of Mandera to the northeastern Kenyan town of Garissa, 260 miles southwest of Bardera. The Somali National Alliance also said in a statement the Kenyan air force bombed Bardera on Thursday in an attempt to rescue the crew and the helicopter, causing "lots of damage and deaths." Simani denied the charges. Mark Radford, a spokesman for Save the Children Fund-UK, said its relief workers in Bardera had not reported the alleged bombing in their daily radio contacts with the Nairobi office. The Somali National Alliance has frequently accused Kenya of supporting factions loyal to President Mohamed Siad Barre, whom they and other rebels ousted in January 1991. Clan-based civil war erupted after he fled. Siad Barre, who ruled Somalia for 21 years, fled to Kenya in April and stayed for about a month before being granted political asylum in Nigeria. Northeastern Kenya is inhabited by ethnic Somalis known to side with their respective clans in Somalia. Used with permission of Associated Press