CNN World Report Story on Canadian Airforce Relief Efforts in Somalia October 1992 Ray Rudowski

In September 1992 I went to Nairobi Kenya onboard a flight chartered by the Canadian air force via Germany to a temporary airbase set up at Nairobi's international airport in Kenya. I was a reporter for Edmonton's ITV News at the time and was working with cameraman Mike Jorgensen on what became one of the first television reports covering Canadian relief efforts to Somalia which at that time was undergoing one of the worst famines in recent years. I ended up producing a 3-part series for ITV News on the challenges facing Canadian air crews shipping food from Nairobi to various hot spots including Belet Huen Somalia. At that time I was also a contributor to CNN's World Report, a scrap book of reports from local reporters around the world. At the time we were there in September 1992, the situation remained unstable as various Somali warlords controlled areas and fought each other. In December 1992 President Bush sent US troops to Somalia in a failed attempt to pacify the area.

What's also interesting about the area covered in this story is that in the early part of 1993, Canada sent paratroopers to Belet Huen who were implicated in the murder of a Somali boy who had been caught trying to steal water. It resulted in a huge military scandal and the eventual disbandment of that unit.

What I recall from my brief stay in Belet Huen was the heat, the fact everyone carried some type of weapon--including shepherds who were walking around with rocket launchers. Canadian military officers were worried about the situation on the ground because by mid-afternoon many of the military-age youth were high on a drug known as "khat" which is chewed like tobacco and acts as a stimulant which could prompt aggressive and unpredictable behaviour.

From a journalistic perspective, this series was one of the best things I ever did and am very proud of being among the first Canadian tv journalists to report from that area.

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[6950062]

Fuck this shit what r we supposed to do? The worlds a mess and all these fuckers will do is breed moré starving children

[Airborne1995]

this was where the Canadian Airborne Regiment was Station and withdrawn