Handmade Somali flag: Private Simone Lisa Steen, Operation Solace Accession Number: REL36415

Description

Rectangular aqua blue cotton flag, with hemmed edges and a hoist sleeve. A white cotton five pointed star has been crudely machine-sewn centrally to each side.

Contextual Description

Somali flag collected in Somalia by F186520 Private Simone Lisa Steen serving with 11 Field Ambulance (6 Brigade.) Steen stated that this flag was made by Somalis in Somalia.

Operation Solace was the Australia's contribution to UNITAF - the Unified Task Force, a United Nations sanctioned, multi-national force which operated in the Republic of Somalia from 9 December 1992 to 4 May 1993. Its mandate was 'to establish a safe environment for the delivery of humanitarian assistance'. Central to the 930-troop deployment was 1 Battalion, Royal Australian Regiment, supported in part by the Medical Element, which comprised a Regimental Aid Post with Regimental Medical Officer and staff, a Treatment Section, an Evacuation Section, a Dental Section, a Health Section and a medical staff officer. The entire group was based at Baidoa, adjacent to the airport, in southern central Somalia, directly inland from Mogadishu. They arrived on 18 January 1993.

Private Steen served as part of the Treatment Section which incorporated a Medical Officer (Major Duncan), Nutrition Officer and 13 Medical assistants. The entire group was inoculated against meningitis, hepatitis A and yellow fever prior to departure and were committed to an inoculation programme upon their arrival in Somalia, mainly as a result of liaison with the NGOs operating in the region. The Inoculation Programme was conducted in teams of four to six, accompanied by a driver and a security detachment, and commenced with measles inoculations and tetanus vaccinations, with some 15,000 patients treated. The Treatment Section also housed a Resus (Resuscitation) Department which was 'called on to treat 22 patients during Operation Solace' ('Paulatim' - RAAMC Magazine, 1994, p 42). 'The conditions ranged from MVA (motor vehicle accident) victims, snake bites and gun wounds.' Conditions were universally described as 'miserable'.

The deployment ceased when 1 RAR departed Somalia on 21 May 1993; Steen and her medical group appear to have left 6 days earlier. She arrived home on 5 June, welcomed home by her parents Annette and Bill. Annette stated that 'our letters [did] not reach her regularly and she is the one who needs the support'. Simone's letters had provided 'a real comfort because then we know she is safe'. Steen revealed to a reporter from the Sunshine Coast Daily, (11 March 1993, p 9) that she 'lived in a bombed building with no roof and a cement floor. She slept on a stretcher bed and kept her belongings in boxes and her gun under her bed. ... Her job took her to small Somali villages for inoculation parades where the medics were doing up to 1148 injections a day. She also carried out guard and security duties, accompanied convoys and found time to play soccer with the Somali children.

'Their hospital was made of inflatable tents and they were forced to work in temperatures up to 54 degrees. ... Simone saw a lot of death in Somalia but also saw some hope for the suffering people. Before she left a school and police station were set up in Baidoa and shops were opened. "From the time we got there until we left we had a school set up and operating, the police station roof was fixed and they had started policing the town," she said. "There was some law and order. ... It's given a bit more hope to the people." '

Details

People

• Private Simone Lisa Blakeman

Conflicts

• Somalia, 1992-1995

Places

• Somalia

Units

• Somalia (UNOSOM/UNITAF), 1992 - 1995

Tags

• National flags
• Somalis
• Refugee camps