As their forces moved through it, each side laid waste the agricultural region between the rivers that is Somalia's breadbasket, killing and terrorizing the less aggressive cultivators. With agricultural and livestock production devastated, famine spread, especially in the arable riverine areas. The U.N. estimated that as many as 300,000 people perished from famine, and about a million sought refuge in Kenya, Ethiopia, Yemen, Europe, Scandinavia and North America.

I.M. Lewis, I. M. Lewis, A Modern History of the Som…, loc. 618