Djibouti to the North, Ethiopia to the West and Kenya to the South provides its borders of approximately 8.5 million people, more than 98 percent are Somali giving it unusual ethnic homogeneity.

A series of Security Council resolutions (733, 746) and diplomatic visits eventually helped impose a ceasefire between the two key factions, signed at the end of March 1992.

By November 1992, General Mohamed Farrah Aidid had grown confident enough to formally defy the Security Council and demand the withdrawal of peace keepers, as well as declaring hostile intent against any further UN deployments.

This offer was accepted by the Security Council, and what became known as the Unified Task Force (UNITAF) was authorized to utilize "all necessary means" to ensure the protection of the relief efforts.

Accordingly, the Security Council suspended any further significant strengthening of UNOSOM as UN affairs in Somalia were subsumed by UNITAF (also known to Americans as Operation Restore Hope).

With only a handful of the 3,000 plus troops envisaged for UNOSOM ever put in place, the Security Council left it to “the discretion of the Secretary General” as to what should be done with the abortive mission.

The Secretary-General convened a meeting in early 1993 in which 14 important Somalia political and rebel factions agreed to hand over all of their weapons to UNITAF and UNOSOM, and over $130 million was pledged by donors at an aid conference that year to assist in reconstruction.

The mandate of UNOSOM II stipulated that the operation was to secure continued relief efforts and, more significantly, to restore peace and rebuild the Somali state and economy.

Contributing nations were: Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Czech Republic, Egypt, Fiji, Finland, Indonesia, Jordan, Morocco, New Zealand, Norway, Pakistan, Botswana and Zimbabwe.