European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - January 27, 1993, Darmstadt, Hesse                                Barbera hopelessness Are of life by Joseph Owen staff writer j Ulie Bryant was weighing an emaciated girl and making notes on a Chart when she realized her pocket calculator was missing. Speaking in a slow patient tone the / International committee of the red Cross worker told her somali helpers she needed the device to assess the girl s weight gain and ability to eat solid food. Perhaps someone wanted to play with it please Tell everyone it should be returned and nobody will be angry the British woman announced. The calculator never did show up that morning at the red Cross therapeutic feeding Center in Barbera. Quot before i would have got excited about it now i realize this is just Somalia Quot Bryant said stoically. The calculator probably was useless to anyone else at this pitiful Way station for refugee nomads its disappearance was just another tile in the absurd mosaic of life at the feeding Center. F the 380 resident patients were sick and starving and the 100 or so family members living with them were underfed though one person there had a pet Monkey. A groggy boy had several fresh Burn Marks on his upper Torso Bryant said somali nomads try to cure measles with such a treatment which does Quot absolutely nothing or it gives them a bad  the feeding Center s name Noolas Means Quot place of  Bryant red Cross Field officer Kassim Mohammed Jama and some helpers were trying heroically to make it just that but were overwhelmed. Noolas is a Cluster of Large open tents on a Dusty Field enclosed by a makeshift Wall of Brush. Lethargic patients lie in the Shade immobilized by hunger and too weak to Brush away the persistent flies. Many children have no clothes some Wear filthy rags. Some Are Mere Bony prostrate ghosts who stir Only when it s time to be spoon fed a Chalky Vitamin enriched brew the Only nourishment their derelict bodies can absorb. Evidence of diarrhoea dots the soil. Many people die Here. Bryant left Noolas because of a greater Absurdity. Robbers broke into the i arc compound in town two weeks ago demanded Money from Swiss worker Kurt Lustenberger then shot him to death As he was fetching it. The red Cross withdrew its non somali workers from Somalia after that. 1 Quot of course we Are very very shaken by this murder and we condemn it Quot Catherin Cazeaux. Spokeswoman for the red Cross in Nairobi Kenya said of the Lustenberger kitting. Quot we think we Are paying a very very High  at least two other Western famine Relief workers have been killed in Somalia As have several of the Agency s somali employees Cazeaux said. While the red Cross figures out what to do next somali employees Are running its 900 kitchens that feed 1 a million people. Those workers no matter How competent usually carry additional burdens. Jama for example worries about his parents and eight Brothers and Sisters. Quot i Don t know whether they Are alive or not. For five months i have no communication Quot said the 35-year-old Law school graduate. Lustenberger s killing seems More typical of what might have happened in Barbera last fall when shootings often occurred outside the Relief agencies food storage warehouse and robberies were an everyday occurrence. One Relief Agency care used an anti tank weapon and six armed guards to protect its Small compound around the clock in those Days said care worker Peter Koch de co Orend a former British infantry major. Eventually inter clan fighting drove All but one Western care worker out of Barbera and the nearby villages care was helping were Cut. Off from food deliveries for weeks. Even after the marines arrived in december the town offered one of the world s most difficult working environments. Disease is rampant in Barbera and most Relief workers contract some major illness within a. Few weeks after arriving there. Few somalis can speak a european language. Theft is constant. Quot i lost the Battery to my Generator. We got it Back in five minutes. I lost red Cross workers Kassim Mohammed end Julie Bryant til to a patient. Bryant left Barbera after a co worker was slain two Weevil go. My hat we saw it for Sale later in the town Quot said Neil Barry a red Cross Relief administrator. In the marketplace a sorry collection of open faced stalls cobbled together from scrap Wood and corrugated Sheet Metal one Vendor was offering several Large sacks of stolen Rice for Sale. He had made no Effort to cover the labels that identified the Rice As donated Relief supplies from the United states. Somebody even stole the new pump that supplied the whole town with water. Fuel shortages also threatened the agencies work. On Jan. 5, care was reduced to Only the fuel that was left in its vehicles Gas links. Quot we have 50 Drums of fuel rusting in Nairobi Kenya. The pilots refuse to Fly it Quot care station director Herbert Rohmann an austrian told . Army civil Naffah team chief capt. Dennis Kennedy. A "why7 there s no danger Here Quot Kennedy said laughing and rolling his eyes sarcastically. A Barbera has no electricity so the marines and the Relief agencies used generators during the Day and. Venine by Midnight total darkness shrouded the town with the silence broken occasionally by the 18 the stars Ano stripes we in esd january 7,1993 marines patrol the marketplace in Barbera. Some troops say their duties have not taken them to areas of death and starvation. In what is a daily occurrence Aid worker Neil Barry Center talks with somalis who want him to divert food deliveries to their Village. Screeching of fighting cats. Morning p sounds were different. Exotic Birds warbled goats pleated. A Relief worker reached in a bathroom somewhere. Then the generators started up again. Amid the destitution the workers clutched at any expression of Joy and tried to nurture it. Bryant noticed a child playing with a piece of Metal on a string at the feeding Center. It was the first toy she had seen there. Barry supervising a group of somali labourers loading trucks at the warehouse encouraged their inclination to sing and dance while they heaved sacks of Rice and Beans. Later that Day they Sang and danced again while unloading a . C-130 Hercules transport plane that had brought More food. Progress is measured Only in such Small Steps. Setbacks can occur As disasters. A week before Lustenberger s murder several Relief workers said the recent killing of a Unicof worker in the port City of Kismay had disturbed them greatly but they did t expect such an incident in Barbera. Why would somalis kill someone who was trying to help them they asked Marine Lance up. Michael Rea assigned to a Blockhouse just up the Street from the House where Lustenberger was later shot was less naive. He expected trouble to Start after his task Force departs. Quot i think the somali warlords will go Back to doing what they were doing Quot he said. Quot i think All these people will Start starving again in All these Camps the red Cross people say they re getting threats. Somalis Are telling them As soon As the americans leave you Guys Are done Quot As it turned out the killers did t even wait until the marines were gone. Contributing to this report Start writer Vince Crawley. A amps photos by Vince Crawley