London BBC World Service (in English) — 1615 GMT

Following an easing of the fighting in Mogadishu yesterday and renewed efforts to achieve a cease-fire, it seems it has all flared up again. It began at the weekend when rebels of the United Somali Congress (USC) moved into the city. There has been street fighting every day since then and reports today of fighting getting close to the airport. And the International Red Cross in Geneva says that its office in Mogadishu has, apparently, been penetrated by armed men. On the line to Geneva, Robin White asked (Pierre Gasman) of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) what had happened.

[Begin recording]

[Gasman] Well, we were in one of our regular radio contacts with our delegation in Mogadishu, that is in the Wardhigley District, where you have also Villa Somalia and a lot of other official buildings, and the radio operator in Mogadishu said that he could not continue the contact because he had a gun to his head. But we have no idea whether these armed people that have apparently penetrated into the compound belong to any of the government forces or to the USC forces. It could well be that it is some freelance personnel that is roaming around in Mogadishu.

[White] And the man on the line then just cut off all transmission?

[Gasman] Exactly. Absolutely. The line was cut off.

[White] Until this time, what was it? Fairly peaceful around your office or what was going on?

[Gasman] Well to our knowledge it was peaceful, but you cannot say peaceful since there was sporadic shooting, but there was no danger to our delegation. We had an incident two days ago when armed men penetrated into the delegation and stole one car, but as this is, well I couldn’t say customary, but it is a regular occurrence in Somalia anyway these days, we did not very much bother about that nor did the delegation.

[White] Were you able to do any work over the past week?

[Gasman] Absolutely. We have been flying from Berbera where we have our hospital in the northwest of Somalia to Mogadishu with medical personnel and with medicine, and to my knowledge we have been able to distribute that medicine to a number of hospitals in the Mogadishu area, and we have been able to establish contact with USC personnel and also with the police and the army in Mogadishu.

[White] So you have been able to do good work over the past week?

[Gasman] Oh certainly, not sufficiently to respond to the emergencies there, but we, to my knowledge we have been able to operate until today.

[White] And how many people would you estimate you have been able to help over the past few days?

[Gasman] God I couldn’t possibly tell. If you take indirect help, if you distribute medicine to hospitals it is very difficult to estimate. I have no numbers at all.

[White] Now I gather that you have an appeal to make to all the warring factions?

[Gasman] That is true. I would certainly like to appeal to all the parties to the conflict to let the ICRC office in Mogadishu operate, and what we hope is that those people that have penetrated into our delegation will release the radio operator and the personnel that they may hold and let him operate again, let him put them into contact with us so that we can continue to channel any help that is required now in Mogadishu to Mogadishu as is needed.

[End recording]

 _{FBIS-AFR-91-004, 7 Jan. 1991, p. 14}