US Senator pledges military help for displaced Ethiopians

Aug 31, 2006 (DIRE DAWA, Ethiopia) — U.S. Senator Barack Obama Thursday visited a sprawling tent camp in eastern Ethiopia for people displaced by floods earlier this month, and said the U.S. military would continue to help the devastated region.

U.S. Navy personnel began relief operations two weeks ago in the eastern town of Dire Dawa, where the first flash floods ripped through the town Aug. 6. In eastern, southern and northeastern Ethiopia, flooding caused by heavy rains has killed more than 600 people and displaced tens of thousands, according to U.N. officials.

“The next order of business is to make sure these families are taken care of,” said the Illinois Democrat, who is on a five-country tour of Africa. “But this shows what kind of role the U.S. military can play.”

U.S. naval engineers, who are part of the antiterror Combined Joint Task Force Horn of Africa based in neighboring Djibouti, set up 60 enormous canvas tents that are housing 2,700 people. The tents are furnished with straw mats and basic necessities.

“This is a wonderful thing that the U.S. military has done,” said Mohammed Noor, who is living in the tent city. “We lost everything by the waters that washed away our home.”

Sanitation facilities were built with the help of the Ethiopian Red Cross. Already 150 people have died of waterborne diseases and 12,000 have been infected, according to relief organizations.

Dire Dawa is 310 miles east of Addis Ababa.

(AP/ST)