Every Minute a Child Dies

The United States is scheduled to commence a desperately needed airlift Thursday that is expected to deliver 145,000 tons of food to Somalia. That food--double the amount already delivered this year by the United Nations, the International Red Cross and other agencies--could mean the difference between life and death in this poor East African nation, ravaged by war, drought and famine.

The U.S. military will not unload or distribute the food; the heroic and overburdened relief workers who have risked their lives for months will do that. The thugs who hire themselves out as security guards ostensibly to help these workers instead often divert the food to their families or the warehouses of businessmen seeking to make a killing on the black market in neighboring Ethiopia and Kenya.

For this reason the United Nations is expected to airlift 500 peacekeepers to Somalia. Thousands of these guards may be needed ultimately to protect the food.

Delay could mean death for many of the 1.5 million Somalis now in imminent and mortal danger. Nearly 4.5 million, three-quarters of the population, are malnourished. Hundreds of thousands (no one can say for sure how many) may have died since the infamous Mohammed Siad Barre, the nation’s former leader, fled in January of 1991, triggering an escalation of the crisis.

Every minute in Somalia, according to relief workers, a child expires. The children die from starvation, dehydration and diseases that could be cured if medicine and food were available.

Many with gunshot wounds perish because of shortages of blood for transfusions. Some die just blocks away from the Mogadishu port, where huge shipments of food await distribution.

Western nations and charities are sending increasingly large shipments of food and medicine. The U.S. airlift could help enormously to stem the starvation in Somalia. The Bush Administration is to be commended for moving, however belatedly.