Relief supplies for Somalia
- Duration
- 25 October 1997 - 26 October 1997
- Military personnel
- 3
- Fatalities
- none
- Decorations
- none
After a period of excessive rainfall in Ethiopia and Somalia, the rivers Giuba and Sjibeli burst their banks in October 1997. Many villages and agricultural land in Somalia were flooded.
Deaths as a result of food and water shortages
Because the approaching harvest was largely ruined and much of the livestock had drowned, the population had virtually no food. Very soon there was also a shortage of clean drinking water, as a result of which thousands of people died of malnutrition, infectious diseases or cholera within a few weeks.
The magnitude of the humanitarian disaster was virtually incalculable in a country already weakened by years of civil war. The children’s charity UNICEF and the United Nations World Food Program appealed to the international community for help.