It Just Gets Worse...

I'm doing a bit of research tonight on Somalia, mostly because this Somali Coast Guard issue is burning in my inbox with 3 different email threads, and now a little back and forth between Rob and David. Along the way, I do a bit of checking on the AU forces in Somalia and this crosses the desk.

Somalia is destination hell.

When a mystery illness swept through the African Union peacekeeping mission here, killing six soldiers and sickening dozens, doctors were stumped.

With help from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, they ruled out swine flu, tropical infection, rat-borne bacteria and even deliberate poisoning, as claimed by Somalia's insurgents.

But the culprit, doctors fear, is just as alarming: beriberi, a vitamin-deficiency disorder typically only seen in famines. Simply put, African Union soldiers appear to have died of a form of malnutrition.

If the peacekeepers can't get properly fed, what hope does the population have?