Abroad

Mogadishu Southeast of Suez

The Americans are moving into the military base the Russians built—but could not stay to occupy—in now pro-Western Somalia on the tip of the Horn of Africa. For the first time, Western correspondents have been permitted to tour the installations on the well-developed base of Berbera, which is being readied for the imminent arrival of American forces and equipment. Berbera is on the Gulf of Aden, strategically close to the mouth of the Red Sea, and will partly make up for the loss of Aden itself, now in the territory of pro-Marxist South Yemen. Washington and Mogadishu signed a $40-million aid agreement last year after Somalia broke with the Soviet Union and expelled Russian troops and technicians in a reversal of alliances that followed the seizure of Ethiopia by Marxist army officers. Somalia has meantime become a beleaguered asylum for hundreds of thousands of Ethiopian refugees, and badly needs Western help. The Berbera base is equipped with various Soviet-built facilities including a 150-bed hospital and a settlement of housing for Russian technicians, known as “Little Moscow.”

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Mogadishu Southeast of Suez

The Americans are moving into the military base the Russians built—but could not stay to occupy—in now pro-Western Somalia on the tip of the Horn of Africa. For the first time, Western correspondents have been permitted to tour the installations on the well-developed base of Berbera, which is being readied for the imminent arrival of American forces and equipment. Berbera is on the Gulf of Aden, strategically close to the mouth of the Red Sea, and will partly make up for the loss of Aden itself, now in the territory of pro-Marxist South Yemen. Washington and Mogadishu signed a $40-million aid agreement last year after Somalia broke with the Soviet Union and expelled Russian troops and technicians in a reversal of alliances that followed the seizure of Ethiopia by Marxist army officers. Somalia has meantime become a beleaguered asylum for hundreds of thousands of Ethiopian refugees, and badly needs Western help. The Berbera base is equipped with various Soviet-built facilities including a 150-bed hospital and a settlement of housing for Russian technicians, known as “Little Moscow.”