Famine in Somalia (1990s)

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Children waiting for food to be distributed, 1992

The famine in Somalia in the early 1990s was triggered by fighting and looting during the Somali civil war, as well as drought . It mainly affected the area between the Jubba and Shabeelle rivers in southern Somalia and the Rahanweyn and Somali Bantu ethnic groups living there . The famine hit millions of people and killed between 200,000 and 500,000 people. It triggered the humanitarian interventions UNOSOM I (1992–1993) and UNOSOM II (1993–1995).

Causes and history

Map of Somalia
Bantu farmer working in the fields, near Kismaayo 1993

The causes of the famine go back to 1989, when armed resistance began in south-west Somalia against the authoritarian government under Siad Barre . Since then, the Somali government army that crossed Somali Patriotic Movement (SPM) from various Darod - clan and the United Somali Congress (USC) of the Hawiye , the area between the rivers Jubba and Shabeelle . All warring parties looted clothing, household effects, food and cattle from the property of the local population, thereby seriously weakening their food base.

In particular, after the USC captured the capital Mogadishu in January 1991 and overthrew Siad Barre, the situation worsened when Barre and parts of the army went south through the Shabelle Valley. He was followed by numerous Darod civilians from Mogadishu who fled attacks by the USC. The USC itself tracked Barre through the Shabelle Valley and further south into the Jubba Valley. Thus, the river valleys were most affected at the beginning. In October 1991 Barre advanced into Baidoa in the Bay region between the rivers, and the fighting there shifted. In the Shabelle Valley, agricultural activities were able to start again, albeit to a lesser extent, after the worst fighting subsided in April 1991, while in the Jubba Valley and in Bay they largely came to a standstill due to continued acts of war.

In contrast to the rest of the clans, the majority of the Rahanweyn and Somali Bantu ethnic groups living in the region do not live as nomads, but rather as sedentary farmers. The Rahanweyn in Bay, who are considered "fake Somali" because of their non-nomadic way of life, and the Bantu in the Jubba Valley as descendants of slaves are traditionally disadvantaged in Somali society. The Bantu were already affected by land expropriations under the Siad Barres government. Since Rahanweyn and Bantu also had relatively few weapons, they could hardly defend themselves against the looting. With the closure of the large banana and sugar cane plantations on the lower reaches of the rivers due to the war, the poorest farmers who were dependent on occasional farm labor lost this source of income. In addition to the looting and fighting in the beginning Somali civil war , there was a drought in 1991–1992, which is not uncommon in the region's climate. (There had been ten major droughts between 1918 and 1975 and three more in 1979–1980, 1983–1986, and 1989–1990.)

In addition to the Rahanweyn and Bantu farmers, hunger also hit or threatened other groups: internally displaced people , Ethiopian refugees - who fled the Ogaden War of 1976–1978 and the Derg regime - and city dwellers who had lost their property and jobs and who had increased Couldn't pay food prices. The nomads of the more powerful clans like the Hawiye, on the other hand, were less affected by the effects of the drought; their herds initially remained largely intact, and they were more likely to have firearms and political power to gain access to food. Thus this famine differed significantly from earlier drought-related famines in the history of Somalia (cf. Famine in Somalia 1974-1975 ), which mainly affected the nomads in the north and center of the country and less the rural population of the somewhat more water-rich south.

famine

With the fall of the Barre government in 1991 and the subsequent withdrawal of the Somali army, the southwest Somali regions of Bay , Gedo , Jubbada Dhexe and Jubbada Hoose became accessible to foreign reporters. Reports such as that of the well-known war photographer James Nachtwey - a picture of whom Somalia became press photo of 1992 - made the extent of the famine in Europe and North America known from mid-1992.

In particular, the Rahanweyn-dominated cities of Baidoa (which was nicknamed the "City of Death" at this time) and Baardheere were known for their so-called hunger camps. In the area around Beledweyne and in camps for displaced persons near Merka , malnutrition rates of around 90% occurred among children. Similar figures were found for other arable areas. (In contrast, the rate of nomadic ranchers in Hiiraan in mid-1991 was “only” 27% and in the small towns of Adale and Eldheere it was 28 and 40%, respectively.) The humanitarian situation was exacerbated by the fact that the already sparse health care system had largely collapsed. The ICRC with its local partner organization - the Somali Red Crescent - was the only major organization to be continuously present in 1991 and supplied up to 2 million people at the height of its relief operations, while the United Nations organizations, for example, at the end of 1990 shortly before the fall of the Barre government left the country. Overall, the ICRC classified 4.5 million Somalis, around half of the population, as at risk of starvation, of which 1.5 million were critically endangered.

The US Department of Agriculture estimated food production in Somalia at 420,000 tons in 1991 - 40% less than in normal years - and the food demand beyond that at 347,000 tons. The FAO even assumed an unmet need of 480,000 t and the ICRC of 35,000 t per month. This supply gap could not be covered by the usual food imports from neighboring countries and from Italy, since import and trade were made more difficult by the deteriorated security situation.

In the further course, the situation for cattle breeders also worsened, since they were forced to sell their animals cheaply while they had to buy grain at a higher price. 1991–1992 Central Somalia lost 70% of its livestock and Southern Somalia lost 50%.

The famine peaked in mid-1992, after which the situation partially improved in the second half of the year due to good harvests in the Shabelle Valley and increased aid deliveries. Death rates fell significantly, but remained higher than normal until the first few months of 1993.

Intervention of the UNOSOM

Distribution of corn and beans in Beledweyne , 1993

The United Nations had left Somalia in late 1990 and initially reacted slowly to the situation in the country. In January 1992, UN Security Council Resolution 733 on Somalia was passed and later the Algerian Mohamed Sahnoun was appointed as special envoy.

Attempts to deliver food aid had limited effect as militias or individual armed men also looted aid supplies and attacked humanitarian workers. Without a state order, the country increasingly disintegrated into contested areas of power of clans and warlords. Various warring parties also split into smaller and smaller factions of individual leaders. Food distribution agreements with one party were useless if another party over whose territory the aid was to be transported did not recognize it. Aid organizations had to give money and natural goods to the warring parties and incur high costs for security personnel, which smaller organizations in particular were unable to do.

Within the Rahanweyn clan, clan elders diverted relief supplies, which were intended for clan members with lower social status, to the subclans that were considered “noble”. Parties to the war fought over the displaced persons' camps inhabited by Bantu in order to plunder the aid arriving there.

According to the November 1992 Special Rapporteur Ismat Kittani , who had since replaced Sahnoun, 70–80% of the relief supplies were looted. According to Alex de Waal (1999), this figure is doubtful, nonetheless "80%" has been adopted by the US State Department and the UN Secretariat , among others . In contrast, Sahnoun had given a looting rate of 15–40%. The ICRC spoke of 10–20%.

Public pressure for international intervention in Somalia increased as a result of media reports of the famine. On April 24, 1992, the United Nations Security Council unanimously passed Resolution 751 on the deployment of the UNOSOM mission to monitor a ceasefire between the most important warlords Mohammed Farah Aidid and Ali Mahdi Mohammed . It initially consisted of 50 military observers and 500 security forces.

From August 1992 the United Nations and the USA had the idea of ​​a so-called humanitarian intervention to occupy Somalia by military force in order to secure the delivery of food and restore peace. The Resolution 775 of 28 August allowed an extension of the UNOSOM mission.

Some of the war leaders fought the UNOSOM. In particular, the warlord Aidid , who saw the foreign troops as a threat to his power and who had formed the Somali National Alliance (SNA) with other factions against them in June, openly opposed the mission from November 1992 and demanded their withdrawal.

In the same month, the US offered to send a multinational force under its own leadership. The UN Security Council approved the dispatch of this Unified Task Force UNITAF (also known as Operation Restore Hope ) with Resolution 794 of December 3, 1992 and made UNOSOM operations subordinate to it. In contrast to UNOSOM, UNITAF was empowered to use “all necessary means”, including military ones. On December 9th, the first UNITAF troops landed on the Somali coast; the troops comprised a total of 37,000 people, the majority of whom were Americans. By March 1993, the operation had achieved significant success in supplying the population without, of course, ending hunger entirely.

Sections of the Somali population also attributed less noble motives, in particular to the USA, such as gaining control over oil supplies or the permanent establishment of military bases in the strategically important Horn of Africa . Failure by UNITAF / UNOSOM in dealing with the population contributed to turning initial sympathy into rejection. In March 1993 the mandate of the UNOSOM was changed to UNOSOM II . Since UNITAF and UNOSOM specifically turned against Aidid, they became involved in fighting with its militias, lost their neutral character and became a legitimate war target for various Somali warring parties. In the " Battle of Mogadishu " on 3rd / 4th In October 1993 Somali militias killed 18 US soldiers and dragged their bodies through the streets of the capital. The images of these events, which were circulated in the media, caused consternation in the US public and weighed more heavily than the images of the famine, so that the deployment in Somalia could no longer be justified domestically. The US then withdrew its troops by 1994. UNOSOM II also withdrew in March 1995 without having achieved any significant success in pacifying Somalia.

End and consequences

The situation improved at the beginning of 1993, as UNOSOM / UNITAF brought more humanitarian aid to those affected and food production had resumed in some affected areas. However, malnutrition remained widespread in Somalia thereafter due to poverty and ongoing civil war.

The hunger affected around 4.5 million people. Data on the number of starvation deaths range from 200,000 to 500,000, the most frequently cited number being 300,000. At times around 3,000 Somalis died every day. In addition, around 2 million were internally displaced because of war and famine or fled to refugee camps in neighboring countries, particularly in Kenya .

For the Rahanweyn, the traumatic experience of the famine led to a stronger political unification. From 1995, with the support of neighboring Ethiopia, they were able to improve their military situation and found the Rahanweyn Resistance Army (RRA).

Like the entire concept of “ humanitarian intervention ”, the international community's military intervention in the specific case of the famine in Somalia remained controversial. The international aid organizations have been accused of providing food to those who caused the famine, prolonging the civil war and thereby doing more harm than good to those affected by hunger by delivering food to recipients other than the intended recipients, despite high losses of aid and financial resources. UNOSOM / UNITAF was accused of primarily serving the interests of the aid organizations and the testing of the concept of humanitarian intervention and less the interests of the hungry, and that it only got going after the peak of the famine had already been overcome. Because of this controversy, most of the publications on the events of that time deal mainly with the actions of the UN, the USA and aid organizations.

One concrete consequence of the famine and the failed international interventions to combat it was that the United States and the rest of the international community were reluctant to intervene in conflicts in the years that followed. This was particularly evident in the 1994 genocide in Rwanda - where the reluctance of the international community was the subject of massive criticism - as well as in the Yugoslav wars .

See also

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Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Alex de Waal: Famine Crimes , 1999: p. 163–166 (course of the war)
  2. ↑ de Waal 1999 (pp. 167-168)
  3. ↑ a b Ken Menkhaus: Bantu ethnic identities in Somalia , in: Annales d'Ethiopie , N o 19, 2003 [1]
  4. ↑ de Waal 1999 (p. 183)
  5. ↑ de Waal 1999 (p. 179)
  6. ^ Globalsecurity.org: Operation Restore Hope
  7. ↑ a b And greet you with the song of the rain bird - Verena "Vre" Karrer, Letters from Somalia (reports by a Swiss woman who worked in Merka in 1993 until she was murdered by unknown persons in 2002), ISBN 3-905561-50 -6
  8. ↑ For example, GEO 02/2003 (p. 60, article "The daily apocalypse" about Mogadishu ) states that around half a million people perished in the region around Baidoa between 1991 and 1993; IM Lewis, Understanding Somalia and Somaliland , 2008 (p. 78) also gives this number.
  9. ↑ Amnesty international journal, January 1996
  10. ^ Michael Maren: The Road to Hell, 1997, ISBN 978-0684828008
  11. ↑ de Waal 1999

literature

Contemporary illustration of the famine:

  • Walter Michler: Somalia - a people is dying. The Civil War and the Failure of Foreign Countries , early 1993, ISBN 978-3801230494 (see review )

Criticism of the "humanitarian intervention" and the actions of the UN and the aid organizations:

This version was added to the list of articles worth reading on June 7, 2007 .