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- THE WEEK, Page 13WORLDWill Food Finally Move?
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- Amid doubts, the U.N. will send troops to open starving Somalia's
- main port
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- Was it a breakthrough or just another blind turn? Last week,
- following more than a month of negotiations, Algerian diplomat
- Mohammed Sahnoun, the ranking U.N. representative in Somalia,
- and General Mohammed Farah Aidid, who heads one of two factions
- that have been locked in fratricidal war, agreed to the
- establishment of an armed U.N. force to open the port of
- Mogadishu, where tons of relief supplies have reportedly rotted
- away on the docks or been dumped into the harbor. U.N. officials
- said the planned contingent would number about 500 troops and
- could be deployed within two or three weeks. The U.S. has
- offered to fly the troops to Africa, and announced plans for its
- own airlift of additional food aid. On Saturday the U.N. began
- moving food to the interior. Private humanitarian groups
- applauded the new efforts, but were worried about the arrival
- of the troops, which British relief administrator Mark Radford
- warned "could create additional security problems, and that
- would be disastrous."
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