unitex@rubbs.fidonet.org (unitex) (08/23/89)
Agency for International Development, a major food donor to the camps. He says it appears some food is going to people in ''inappropriate ways,'' while ''some people are simply not getting enough.'' He points out that there was a high level of malnutrition among children in the camps. Ashenafi Mamo, an Ethiopian Ministry of Health doctor working in the camps, says malnutition among children under five was about 25 percent last March. Since then, supplemental feeding for children under five and pregnant women and mothers of nursing babies has brought the level down to about 15 percent, he says. A one-day re-registration of all the refugees was planned for Aug. 15 to try to solve the problem of ration cheaters. It might also have shed new light on one of the biggest mysteries of the Somali camps: How many refugees there actually are. Going by Ethiopian figures, based on registration of everyone showing up and claiming to be a refugee, there are about 600,000 refugees in or around the camps. But a ''guess'' last summer by the UN put the number of refugees at just over half that, so only enough food for about 350,000 is being delivered, Mr. Peters says. Peters also says the Ethiopian government has arrested a number of Ethiopian food-truck drivers and other Ethiopians on charges of stealing food. Another part of the food problems is that ethnic Somalis living on both sides of the Ethiopia-Somalia border look similar and speak the same language, making it difficult for registration officials to know who is a refugee. While for many, camp life means endless idle days of discouragement, others have taken paying jobs with international relief organizations operating in the camp. A small number of young refugees have found places in the handful of camp schools. One small boy said sadly that he had found all the classes full. Another boy, who managed to get in, says he hopes someday to ''be a university graduate and earn a lot of money.'' But when asked what he wanted to do, all he could think of was: ''Work in a refugee camp.'' Some Somali refugees have opened small retail shops in a thriving market area that has sprung up near the main camp. Many of the Somalis arrived here with at least some goods and money from their homes. But even the destitute sell some rationed food to obtain other kinds of food lacking in their diet here. One small store offers soap, spaghetti, cigarettes, pens, powdered soft drinks, and a radio repair service. Dust blows up in periodic gusts across the narrow dirt road through the market stalls. Buses, loaded with Somalis travelling from one camp or village to another, compete for space with international relief vehicles, and swarms of people on foot. The UNHCR has come under some criticism by private, international relief organizations and some Western government relief officials for responding too slowly to the sudden influxes of refugees into Ethiopia. Many people died in the Sudanese refugee camps shortly after their arrival last year. Peters points out that the Sudanese and Somali influxes peaked at the same time - the middle of last year. He and other UNHCR officials contend there was no way they could set up shelter and feeding programs any faster. They say day-to-day construction and operation of the camps falls under the control of the Ethiopian government, which last year had its hands full rushing food and other relief to several million people in northern Ethiopia, where a famine was prevented with major international assistance. * Origin: UNITEX --> Toward a United Species (1:107/501) --- Patt Haring | UNITEX : United Nations patth@sci.ccny.cuny.edu | Information patth@ccnysci.BITNET | Transfer Exchange -=- Every child smiles in the same language. -=-