As hard as I try not to, I cannot help but think of Somalia when this time of year arrives. It was in October when an U. Anyone who was in Mogadishu on that fateful day is burdened with an indelible memory of this bloody battle.
I certainly cannot forget what I heard and observed first-hand in those days, especially as there are now daily news reports on the current famine in Somalia.
While the world decides again what to do about the suffering occurring in Somalia, I thought maybe the time has come for me to relieve myself of my own account of what I experience in Somalia in I warn the reader that what is written in the following is done in a way that reflects the anarchy and chaos that prevailed as we worked back then to tame Somalia and save its people from famine and war.
We landed next to a remote camp for displaced people and, as soon as I stepped off our helicopter, my senses were overwhelmed by sights and smells that I had not come across during my previous 22 years of working with USAID and the Peace Corps in Africa. Thousands of emaciated people dressed in the barest rags were milling about as they waited for the food, water and medicines they needed to survive another day.
I felt nauseous when I realized that we had arrived too late to fulfill our mission of saving the lives of many of these desperate people. As the dust cleared and the swarms of flies left my eyes alone for a moment, I caught a glimpse of hundreds of small mounds of earth running in lines from the outskirts of the camp up to horizon. At first, it reminded me of the mounds farmers build in West Africa to plant yams. Then, it hit me like a low blow that these were the shallow graves of those who had already died and the pervading stench was that of decomposing bodies.
