ABSTRACT
Media reports of anarchy and massive death rates in Mogadishu attracted considerable political attention in the United States in December 1991 and early in the new year. During most of 1991, Somalia's plight went mainly unnoticed beyond its borders in the absence of foreign embassies, UN agencies, and the international press. Somalia was one of the first crises confronting the newly elected UN secretary-general, Boutros Boutros-Ghali, who took office on January 1, 1992. The UN secretary-general made a periodic report to the Security Council on August 24, 1992. The Security Council was seized with the Somali question in January 1992 because the heavy fighting in Mogadishu had interrupted food distribution, putting several hundred thousand people at risk of starvation. Finally, policy analysts question whether Somalia is a precedent for future interventions in other situations of catastrophic civil conflict or is a problem that will remain sui generis.
