U.N. Urged to Send Troops to Protect Somalian Relief

Sen. Nancy Landon Kassebaum (R-Kan.) urged Wednesday that the United Nations immediately send troops to protect a massive relief effort in war-torn Somalia.

Both Kassebaum and Rep. Bill Emerson (R-Ohio) urged a stronger U.S. and international response to a crisis that U.S. aid official Andrew Natsios said Wednesday is killing as many people each day as are dying each month in the higher-profile Balkan conflict.

Assistant Secretary of State John R. Bolton strongly defended U.S. efforts to relieve suffering in the Horn of Africa nation. Bolton said it is a misconception that U.S. officials are paying too little attention to Somalia while focusing on less deadly crises elsewhere.

Tens of thousands of Somalis are believed to have died from malnutrition or factional fighting since the ouster of President Mohamed Siad Barre in January, 1991. The Red Cross estimates that 1.5 million now are in danger of starvation.

Kassebaum, who returned this week from a trip to Somalia, told the House Committee on Hunger that U.N. forces should be sent in whether warring factions agree or not.

Sending in troops would pose risks, she acknowledged, “but I believe it is a risk worth taking” to protect relief efforts by several international organizations.

Bolton, speaking to the committee after Kassebaum, said an aide to the leader of one Somali faction had warned that if 50 U.N. observers were sent in “they should be sent with 50 coffins.”

Bolton said, however, that the first of a 50-member, unarmed U.N. force may be arriving this week in Mogadishu, the Somali capital. The United Nations also is trying to get in a 500-member force to protect aid workers but is awaiting the approval of warring leaders.

Somalia’s interim prime minister, Umar Arteh Ghalib, appealed Monday for 10,000 U.N. peacekeepers to protect mass feeding programs.