Will World Fiddle as They Die? : Only fast international action can save Somalis

Civil war, drought and famine could easily push the death toll in Somalia to well over the million mark unless the international community intercedes quickly. The situation is being called the single worst humanitarian crisis in the world.

As many as 4.5 million Somalis are in serious need of emergency food, according to Red Cross estimates. At least one-third of those are expected to die from starvation unless the fighting stops and supplies can get through immediately. As many as three-fourths of all preschool-age children could die from disease and malnutrition if they cannot get the needed medicine and food before bodily damage becomes irreversible.

One in four Somali children has already died. Last week Times staff writer Michael A. Hiltzik visited a Red Cross feeding center and saw a starving 7-year-old boy who looked to be only 3. The food was too late for him; neither his father nor relief workers expected the child to live.

Tens of thousands of children and adults have died in Somalia since the crisis deepened when the nation’s former leader, Gen. Mohammed Siad Barre, fled the fighting in January of 1991. They are the casualties of an internecine civil war. Unlike wars inspired by tribal loyalties, this fighting pits members of the same Somali clans against one another. They are well-armed because of supplies provided by the superpowers during the Cold War. Somalia’s civil war focuses not on ideology but on control. The hungry rebels also fight for the spoils of this war: relief supplies.

Armed thugs, many of them teen-agers, have stolen tons of food and medicine from airplanes, relief convoys and food camps. They stole 40 tons from the Red Cross last week. Their booty, the only available rice in a country dependent on rice, is the sole currency of value in Somalia.

More food is in the pipeline. The U.N. World Food Program has shipped 23,000 tons, which is due in Mogadishu by the end of this month. But the looting and shooting make distribution dangerous and at times impossible. Even if that food reaches people in need, it is less than half of the amount that would be needed every month for the next year to save most Somalis.

As the death toll mounts, the United Nations must send in hundreds, perhaps, thousands of guards to guarantee safe passage for relief workers, food and medicines.

The Somalia crisis is much worse than the great famine that killed more than 1 million Ethiopians in 1984-85. The world responded then, and it must now. Decency demands nothing less.