Million refugees

Press, 9 April 1980, Page 18

Million refugees

By

GORDON McLEAN

< in Nairobi

Somalia is struggling to cope with more than one million refugees as fighting continues to drive out civilians from the Ogaden border desert disputed by the Somalis and Ethiopians. ’

In. addition to 634,000 refugees officially stated to be sheltering in 24 special camps, the Somali Government claims , that about as many people again have found refuge with relatives in Somalia.

Almost all those who have fle>’ from Ethiopia' ire ethnic Somalis, but most have lived all their lives under Ethiopian rule in the Ogaden. More are pouring in each day.

Relief officials; battling with the enormous problem in r this drought-stricken country which does not have enough food to feed its own four million people, say that u.dess international aid is given on a .massive scale

they foresee a “Kampucheatype catastrophe.” * Almost all the refugees are women and children. The death rate among children under 10 is double that of adults because of serious epidemics of measles, typhoid and dysentery. Tuberculosis is taking a heavy toll of the old.' Most camps have no drugs and vaccination programmes are virtually non-existent; each inmate is • rationed to half a litre of water daily.

One United Nations official helping the refugees said: ‘‘One out of every four people' in Somalia is a refugee. Imagine the United States, rich as it is, having to cope with 50 million refugees — that is the same proportion as here.” The situation has steadily got worse since the actual Ogaden war ended early last, year with the defeat of the Somali army by the Ethiop.ans, aided by Cuban and Soviet advisers. Thousands of Somali civilians who had lived for years in the Ogaden fled ahead of the victorious Ethiopians. They were afraid they would be killed or tortured in revenge for the abortive Somali invasion.

The trouble subsided for a while, but the Western Somali Liberation Front, which claims most of the Ogaden from Ethiopia, refused to accept defeat and regrouped f - guerrilla operations. In recent weeks the Ethiopians launched a new offensive to crush the guerrillas, using jet aircraft to bomb villages including some inside the Somali Republic. United Nations agencies estimate that $l4O million is needed in aid and about 160,000 tonnes of food, if a tragedy is to be averted. So far the Americans have sent the most help, followed by the European Economic Community, Sweden, and the World Food Programme. One of the biggest problems facing the Somali Government is that a number of. African countries are lukewarm over the crisis. They claim that most of the refugees are in their present plight because of Somalia’s fight for territory which is legally Ethiopian. So the Somalis are looking to Western nations, especially the United States, for urgent help now that they have placed themselves firmly in the anti-Commun-ist . camp after expelling their Russian military advisers and rejecting Soviet military aid. Copyright, London Observer Service.'