United States Air Force Staff Sergeant Patrick DelSelva peered out the back of a C-130 cargo plane flying low over north-eastern Kenya, took out his digital camera and snapped a picture of the scene below.
”Well, they’re not shooting at us, so that’s good,” DelSelva said, laughing, as refugees from the area’s massive camps scrambled to gather mosquito nets, blankets and other relief supplies that had just been dropped from his aircraft.
At a time when questions about the US’s use of military power abound, the US is using its muscle to make friends in a region that many fear could become a haven for radicalism. This week, the military started air-dropping about 100 000kg of supplies in Dadaab, where three refugee camps have been cut off after the worst flood season in East Africa in 50 years.
The camps house more than 160 000 people, most of them Somalis who have been fleeing violence there since 1991.
”This is a different way of fighting terror,” said Sergeant First Class Darrell Richards, who was leading the operation for the Combined Joint Task Force: Horn of Africa, a US counterterrorism force that was formed one year after the September 11 terrorist attacks. ”We help them out before al-Qaeda gets to them.”
Extremism
Based in Djibouti, at the strategic point where the Red Sea opens into the Indian Ocean, the task force uses humanitarian aid and military training to try to stamp out extremism in the often volatile region that includes Ethiopia, Eritrea, Kenya, the Seychelles, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen.
The task force has built medical clinics in rural parts of Tanzania and Uganda, provided training for physicians in Yemen and soldiers in Djibouti, and helped respond to other natural disasters.
Several of the countries on which the task force focuses — particularly Somalia — are of great concern for the US. Last month, the top US diplomat for Africa, Jendayi Frazer, said al-Qaeda militants were operating with ”great comfort” in Somalia, providing training and assistance to a radical military group.
Kenya, and Tanzania just to its south, have already been victims of al-Qaeda terrorism, with the bombings at the US embassies in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam in 1998 and attacks on a hotel and an Israeli airliner in Kenya in 2002.
The region also has been a centre of virulent anti-American sentiment, with huge anti-US demonstrations over the war in Iraq and American support for Israel during the fighting in Lebanon. The US also has faced criticism for supporting Somali warlords who were recently ousted by an Islamic group that Washington has linked to al-Qaeda.
Richards said extreme poverty can often make people susceptible to radicalism, making the air drops to Dadaab — just 80km from the Somali border — even more important.
”If you’re in need, you’ll do what you have to to survive,” he said. ”We want to be the first person to help them out and show that we care about them, and they’ll turn away from the terror-type organisation.”
Respite
For the troops, this week’s air drops were a respite from the danger of deployments in Iraq and Afghanistan. Many of those involved are based at Dyess air-force base in Texas, and were serving in south-west Asia before being sent to Kenya.
The mood on board the hulking gray plane was relaxed and jovial; crew members chatted about their impressions of Kenya — with its warm beer and cold showers — and told tales of the rollicking coast.
”When we’re in Iraq we have to sit in the windows to keep a lookout; we’ve got our armour on. This is a lot more fun,” Senior Airman Chris Elder (22) said after more than about 11 000kg of supplies dropped from the plane, which had slowed to 140 knots and was flying just 90m off the ground.
”And we don’t often get to see the effect we’re having, so this is a lot more rewarding,” he said.
From the plane, it was clear the flooding had exacerbated an already dire situation in East Africa, one of the poorest regions of the world. Most of the region’s 200-million people live on less than $1 a day and regularly experience drought and famine.
At least 230 people have died from floods and related waterborne diseases since October in Kenya, Somalia, Rwanda and Ethiopia.
Andrea Lanthier-Seymour, a spokesperson for the humanitarian group Care, which is distributing the aid in Dadaab, said the air drops are the only way to get in relief supplies.
”The roads have been washed out, and this area is not easily accessible,” Lanthier-Seymour said. ”These people, for days they couldn’t lie down, they couldn’t cook, they lost all their belongings.”
She added: ”When the planes come, the refugee workers run out and just start piling up all the tarps.” — Sapa-AP