Somalia Relief Project Widens With Airlift

NAIROBI, Kenya â€”  The United Nations and the United States widened their relief operation in Somalia on Saturday with an airlift to the nation’s interior, where millions are threatened with starvation.

The plane carried nearly 19 tons of high-protein biscuits to Baidoa, a town northwest of Mogadishu where aid workers estimate 500 to 700 people die daily.

The airlift marked the start of a huge U.N. operation that organizers say eventually will combine airlifts, airdrops and truck convoys in an effort to stem the nation’s mass starvation.

Tens and perhaps hundreds of thousands of Somalis already have died from the combined effects of drought and war in the largely desert nation. Aid workers say 1.5 million people could die within weeks and another 4.5 million people are in danger of starvation. The nation has 8.4 million people.

Also Saturday, a U.N. agency said hundreds of thousands of people are threatened with starvation in southern Sudan because neither the government nor rebels will grant relief agencies safe passage.

The last airlift of food to the regional capital of Juba was on July 18 by the Lutheran World Federation. Heavy fighting and the lack of safety guarantees from the rebel Sudan People’s Liberation Army have prevented the Lutheran agency and the United Nations from resuming airlifts.

Officials at the U.N. Operation Lifeline Sudan and the Lutheran World Federation in Nairobi confirmed the rebels are not responding to requests for security guarantees.

If the impasse continues, it could lead to a disaster similar to 1988, when tens of thousands of people died, said Catherine Bertini, executive director of the Rome-based World Food Program, a U.N. agency.