Africa Speaks Reasoning Forum

Tsunami-struck Somalia fears lack of attention

http://www.philly.com/mld/dailynews/news/local/10615461.htm


THEY ARE chilling lines spoken by actor Don Cheadle in
the new movie "Hotel Rwanda":

"There will be no intervention force, no rescue. We
can only save ourselves."

"Hotel Rwanda" tells the true story of how Paul
Rusesabagina, manager of a luxury hotel in the Rwandan
capital city of Kigala, managed to save more than
1,200 Tutsi refugees from Hutu death squads.

But in the days following the Indian Ocean earthquake
>and tsunami that killed more than 160,000 people from
>Thailand to Africa, some Somalis in this area were
>worried that history was repeating itself.
>
>Just as the killings of nearly a million people in the
>1994 Rwandan genocide was largely ignored by Western
>nations, it seemed as if the world was looking the
>other way when it came to African victims of the Dec.
>26 disaster.
>
>For in the first couple of weeks, very little
>attention has been given to the disaster's impact in
>Africa. "We have to go to the Internet to get
>information," says Fouzia Musse, a Somali-born woman
>living in Lansdowne.
>
>"We are upset, but what can we do? This has always
>been the case. It doesn't matter whether it's a
>natural disaster or man-made disaster, the condition
>of Africa always gets the lowest news coverage around
>the world."
>
>All over the major networks and cable programs on CNN
>and MSNBC, have been stories and pictures of Asian,
>European, American victims and survivors. But there
>were no pictures of the disaster from East Africa,
>where Somalia was the hardest-hit country.
>
>"There's just no salient coverage and that leads
>people to think that Africa was not affected at all,"
>said Anita Fleming-Rife, a journalism professor at
>Lock Haven University, near State College, Pa.
>
>"And there's a strong correlation between the media
>coverage and the potential for them [Somalians] to
>receive aid." Fleming-Rife worked in Somalia for the
>United Nations in the early 1990s.
>
>An estimated 300 or more people have died in Somalia;
>10 people died in Tanzania; and Kenya and the
>Seychelles, a group of islands off the coast of
>Africa, cited one death each.
>
>But Mohamed Basal, an environmental health and safety
>specialist working at Philadelphia International
>Airport, says calls to his uncle in Hafun - the most
>damaged village in Somalia - indicate as many as
>11,000 to 18,000 Somalis may have been killed by the
>tsunami. He and others say they contact relatives
>through satellite and cell phones.
>
>"My uncle said they dug 40 feet into the ground only
>to to reach the roof of a house," Basal said Sunday.
>He said that waves estimated as going as fast as 800
>mph hit the coast knocking sand dunes 25 feet high
>onto village houses.
>
>Also worried about relatives in Somalia is Ali
>Mohamed, a journalism professor at Edinboro
>University, in Erie, Pa.
>
>"The thing is, normally, we don't get a lot of news
>about Africa in American newspapers or on American
>television, unless it's a huge disaster, a tremendous
>famine, an earthquake or a war.
>
>"So when this struck, I was hoping there would be some
>coverage of Somalia. I can understand if most of the
>coverage is related to Asia, because that's where most
>of the deaths were, but it should be covered wholly."
>
>Like Musse, Mohamed said he turns to Web sites of
>Somali groups, Internet radio stations in the Somali
>language and the BBC.
>
>Musse said last week that her contacts led her to
>believe as many as 700 Somalians were killed in the
>tsunami.
>
>"It's sad," Musse said. "These people have very little
>from the beginning and to see it wiped out.
>
>"These are fishing villages, they don't have
>livestock. They make their homes by hand, with no
>nails, just mud and straw. You can imagaine a straw
>house being taken out and these are people who have
>been devastated by a long civil war for 14 years."
>
>Musse said the village of Hafun, in the northeast
>province of Puntland, was hit hard, with 300 to 400
>people killed in a town of about 3,000 to 5,000
>residents. About 80 percent of the homes, roads and
>other buildings were destroyed. Another village,
>Haradhere, also lost about 300 people, Musse said. And
>the fishermen who survived no longer have boats.
>
>Somalia is also plagued by a long history of civil war
>and the fact that its new central government, approved
>only months before the tsunami hit - is based in
>neighboring Kenya.
>
>The country had been without a central government
>since former President Siad Barre was overthrown in
>1991.
>
>An official in the new government made a plea for help
>last week:
>
>"We are very happy that relief supplies have arrived
>in Asia, which was hit the hardest by the tragedy, but
>Somalia - which has been ravaged from a 13-year civil
>war, drought and political neglect - also needs
>emergency help to deal with the latest calamity,"
>Somali presidential spokesman Yusuf Mohamed Ismail,
>told the Associated Press. He said survivors urgently
>need help after losing their homes and livelihoods.
>
>Musse agrees.
>
>"I still have family in Somalia, my uncles, my camels;
>it's my heritage," said Musse, who comes from a
>nomadic group of people. Now, some of her extended
>family members are missing.
>
>But Somalians aren't the only people upset about the
>lack of coverage.
>
>Lee Cassanelli, a professor and director of the
>African Studies Center at the University of
>Pennsylvania, also voiced concerns.
>
>"I don't know anything about the extent of the tsunami
>[damage in Somalia]" Cassanelli said. He too once
>worked in the country and has friends living there
>that he has been calling.
>
>"Africa is not a main focus of either our government
>or other countries," Cassanelli said. "I think it's
>not unusual that Africa is marginalized. It's always
>treated as marginal."
>
>Many of the relief organizations' Web sites saying
>they are accepting donations to deliver aid "to the
>survivors of the earthquake and tsunami in South
>Asia."
>
>But Rick Perera, a spokesman for Care USA in Atlanta
>says that although Care's Web site says it is
>collecting aid for victims in Asia, it does have
>workers based in Somalia helping tsunami victims
>there.
>
>And Somalians here say that - while it has not been
>reported widely in American media - U.S. and German
>soldiers based in the East African country of Djibouti
>have been giving food and water to Somali tsunami
>survivors.
>
>Perera says money donated to tsunami relief can be
>earmarked for a particular country, or if the donor
>says the contribution is flexible, it can go to any
>country where CARE is providing relief.
>
>"Obviously, people are motivated by what they see in
>the media," Perera said.
>
>"But other crises around the world: the situation in
>Darfur, Sudan is ongoing, the tremendous effect of the
>HIV AIDS epidemic in subsaharan Africa and the fact
>that girls in many parts of the world aren't allowed
>to get an education" need to addressed as well, Perera
>said.
>
>"It's wonderful that there's this outpouring of
>support [for the tsunami victims]," he added. "We'd
>like that to see this outpouring of support continued
>in a growing movement to fight poverty worldwide."
>
>Last week, the United Nations launched an appeal,
>saying at least $13 million was urgently needed to
>help 54,000 Somalis left homeless by the tsunami and
>the BBC reported officials saying some 300 people were
>killed.
>
>Musse, 45, with a master's degree in public
>administration and other degrees in economics and
>accounting, has spent her career in the United States
>working with refugees and immigrants. She is a
>community advocate with the East African Resource
>Center in Powelton Village.
>
>Lately, however, Musse, who is divorced with adult
>children, says she had been thinking of returning to
>Somalia to help the country rebuild even before the
>tsunami hit. Now, she is seriously considering going
>back home.
>
>Musse said she was working in Kenya with Somali
>refugees (from the Somalian civil war when the Rwandan
>massacre took place in 1994.
>
>"That was a man-made disaster. Now this [tsunami] is a
>natural disaster. The amount of destruction you see in
>the newspapers... picture that in a poor country where
>the people have very little, 14 years of civil war,
>it's sad."

Maybe is just me but..i am really disappointed in the us media, not surprised just disappointed...but you know we look to america to solve all of our concerns and i think until african and african decendants in the west unite there will be no "voice" for africa....like lauryn hill said" why black ppl always be the ones to settle?" is sooo true..yeah the continent has been through alot, we need to share that experience not only in times of wide scale disaster but every day.... yeh somalia will be treated like a step child and african in the west ( not all) will sit and wait and watch....