In April 1992, UN-approved relief operations began in Somalia. In 1990-91, an estimated 300,000 Somalis died from starvation. Private relief organizations could not prevent food theft by armed militias and the use of food as a political weapon. Food was traditionally a source of power in Somalia competing clans fought over the control of food supplies and storehouses. Mogadishu reverted from a once-modest city to a repressive Third World capital lacking electricity and suffering from food and fuel shortages and the breakdown of law and order. At the end of 1990, in the face of clan-based civil warfare, the government collapsed. In 1969 Somalia's president was assassinated and replaced by a military dictator whose rule became increasingly repressive after a disastrous war with neighboring Ethiopia.
