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- <text id=91TT0276>
- <title>
- Feb. 11, 1991: World Notes:Somalia
- </title>
- <history>
- TIME--The Weekly Newsmagazine--1991
- Feb. 11, 1991 Saddam's Weird War
- </history>
- <article>
- <source>Time Magazine</source>
- <hdr>
- WORLD, Page 61
- World Notes
- SOMALIA
- The Price Of Victory
- </hdr><body>
- <p> The capital city of Mogadishu resembled a charnel house last
- week after victorious rebels drove President Mohammed Siad
- Barre into exile, ending 21 years of dictatorial rule. Dogs
- devoured hundreds of corpses in the streets following a
- month-long campaign that killed more than 5,000 civilians and
- forced tens of thousands to flee. Starving survivors had only
- fetid river water to drink, and looters reduced shattered
- buildings to empty shells.
- </p>
- <p> Barre fled the city in a tank minutes before the insurgents
- stormed the presidential palace. He reportedly escaped into
- neighboring Kenya, where authorities said they would grant him
- temporary asylum.
- </p>
- <p> Prospects for the new government in Mogadishu seemed bleak.
- The coalition of rebels, which represents three Somali clans
- that have feuded for centuries, named hotel owner Ali Mahdi
- Mohammed, 52, interim President until elections could be held.
- But Mahdi's party, the United Somali Congress, grew angry at
- his appointment by a clique of elders and attacked the action
- as "hasty" and "unnatural." The tenuous troika could swiftly
- come unglued.
- </p>
-
- </body></article>
- </text>
-
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