Helping to Relieve Plight of Somalia : Volunteers: As a Red Cross worker, Carson resident Bill Alley has experienced both joy and frustration.

Carson resident Bill Alley, a volunteer with the International Committee of the Red Cross, has seen the ravages of the most famine-stricken areas of Somalia, the starving, emaciated people dying on the streets and in food kitchens.

“There were a lot of shots being fired,” Alley said, recalling his recent visit to Baidoa, one of the towns hardest hit by Somalia’s famine and clan fighting.

“There are a number of extremely needy people, people who have been victimized and come in from miles and miles leaving behind their villages and hoping for food. A lot die on the way, die on the street, die in the food kitchens, although it is substantially reduced from the way it was several months ago.”

Alley, in a telephone interview from Mombasa, Kenya, after another 12-hour day helping to coordinate food shipments, said he can’t wait to get back to Somalia.

The situation there was tense and unpredictable. But, he said, there’s work to be done.

“I’m not allowed back into Somalia until there’s a better feeling for what the Somalis are going to do,” said Alley, one of five American Red Cross volunteers in Kenya helping with the relief effort.

One of the worst famines in modern African history has claimed the lives of 300,000 Somalis, with 2 million more, particularly in desperate interior regions, in danger of dying.

Relief agencies earlier this year had mounted a massive drive to feed the hungry, but intensified fighting among warring clan militias and bandits severely hampered the efforts.

U.S. troops arrived Wednesday in Mogadishu, Somalia’s seaside capital, to take over the airport and docks for famine relief operations.

Last September Alley, part of a specially trained corps of disaster specialists, became one of the International Red Cross’ 80 volunteers assigned to arrange the Mombasa shipments into Somalia.

“This U.S.-U.N. presence hopefully will provide some security so the humanitarian effort can continue,” said Alley, 61, a former Marine and a retired commander in the Los Angeles County sheriff’s department.

Up at dawn and working past dusk, Alley has spent most of what will be a six-month tour working with two other International Red Cross volunteers and 50 Kenyans--and enduring the frustration of getting food into Somalia only to learn that it never made it to the most needy.

“The point is a lot does disappear,” Alley said.

Still, enough food has made it to severely stricken areas to slow the death rate, although it remains high.

In Baidoa, he said, the death rate several months ago was about 4,500 per month, compared to the recent estimate of 1,500 per month.

“What you notice is the children who a month ago were spindly little things with no hope and those are the ones who come up to you with big smiles and holding your hand and run around,” Alley said.

Such encouraging signs raise the spirits of the relief workers, he said.

Alley said he reserves respect for the Somalis involved in the relief effort, who have painfully watched their compatriots die.

During his four-day sojourn to Somalia, one Somali relief worker took Alley by the hand and asked, “Why doesn’t the U.N. come in and stop this? Why can’t they come in and help the people live?”

Alley could provide no opinion--as a worker for the Swiss-run Red Cross he must remain neutral. He also tries to neutralize his emotions, which he said must remain in check if he is to work well. “Staying focused on the problem” works for him, he said.

Despite the pressures and frustrations, he said he has no regrets about joining and has received encouragement from family members and fellow American Red Cross workers back home.

“Every day is chaos but it’s fun,” he said. “You are contributing to life. I wouldn’t have missed it.”

Alley worries that interest in the plight of Somalia will wane as time goes by and the media focus on another hot topic.

“It is the most natural thing in the world that after people hear about an issue or problem their attention gets diverted and they think it doesn’t mean anything anymore. But I have a message here: It means something. These (relief) organizations still need your support and don’t stop that.

“The assistance needs to continue to provide the Somalis an opportunity to get back on their feet . . . and that’s why I do this dumb stuff.”