[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 145 (1999), Part 21]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages 31283-31284]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]



                     HUMANITARIAN WORK'S HEAVY TOLL

                                 ______
                                 

                           HON. TONY P. HALL

                                of ohio

                    in the house of representatives

                      Thursday, November 18, 1999

  Mr. HALL of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in memory and in honor of 
24 people who lost their lives last week trying to help those who are 
suffering in Kosovo.
  These aid workers and others were on a flight between Rome and 
Pristina. Wreckage of their plane was found only a few miles from

[[Page 31284]]

their destination. They were United Nations employees and aid workers 
serving private charities, police officers taking time off their 
regular jobs to help bring peace to Kosovo, doctors and scientists, and 
the crew that flew the route regularly for the World Food Programme.
  Mr. Speaker, we have discussed on this floor what the onset of winter 
will mean for refugees who returned to their homes in Kosovo to find 
only rubble. We have worried over their fate and tried to provide 
funding for people who would act on our shared concerns--people like 
those who died Friday.
  In a region riven by bitter clashes between ethnic groups, the ethnic 
background of those who have come to their aid is remarkable for its 
variety. Those who died personify this coming together for the sole 
purpose of easing suffering: 12 Italians, three Spaniards, two Britons, 
an Irishman, a Kenyan, a Bangladeshi, an Australian, a Canadian, an 
Iraqi, and a German.
  Theirs are the faces of the United Nations, faces that signify hope 
to millions of people around the world. We sometimes forget that the 
U.N. has a very human face--and a remarkable number of dedicated 
employees. The World Food Programme, which provides food aid to 75 
million people in 80 countries, is just one example of the United 
Nations at work. Since 1988, this organization has lost 51 employees to 
work-related accidents, illnesses, and attacks--including three who 
died last week. They died fighting the hunger that gnaws away the lives 
of one of every seven people in the world, assisting in projects that 
too often exacted the heaviest human cost.
  Mr. Speaker, as we look forward to our Thanksgiving meals next week, 
let us pause a moment to reflect on those who died last week trying to 
eradicate starvation--much as our dear friend and colleague, 
Congressman Mickey Leland, did 10 years ago.
  Together with Mickey, we remember Roberto Bazzoni, Paola Biocca, 
Andrea Curry, Velmore Davoli, Nicolas Ian Phillip Evens, Abdulla 
Faisal, Marco Gavino, Kevin Lay, Raffaella Liuzzi, Miguel Martinez-
Vasquez, Jose Maria Martinez, Alam Mirshahidul, J. Perez Fortes, 
Richard Walker Powell, Daniel Rowan, Thabit Samer, Paola Sarro, Laura 
Scotti, Antonio Sircana, Carlo Zechhi, Julia Ziegler, Andrea 
Maccaferro, Antonio Canzolino, and Katia Piazza.
  They all were heroes to the hungry and suffering people of the world, 
and they all deserve our thanks and our prayers for the families they 
left too soon.

                          ____________________