Tsunami-struck Somalia fears lack of attentionhttp://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."
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