of food and medical supplies in six months to international humanitarian organizations. When this proved inadequate to stop the massive death and displacement, the United Nations Security Council passed Resolution 794 on 3rd December 1992, a major peacekeeping mission which authorized the use of all necessary means to assure a protected environment for conducting humanitarian operations. Concurrently, the U.S. launched Operation Restore Hope, a major coalition operation led by the United Task Force (UNITAF) to assist and protect relief activities. The US provided approximately 25,000 of the 37,000 troops provided. After a long and protracted effort, the operation was eventually successful in saving many lives, as well as in de-escalating the high-intensity conflict into low-level, local skirmishes. However, the initiative has been criticized for expanding beyond its original boundaries ("mission creep"). The Washington-based Refugee Policy Group NGO in November 1994 suggests that any assessment of the success of Operation Provide Relief is "so fraught with methodological problems that it is rarely attempted." As such, it asserts that excess mortality had already peaked by the time that the first relief programs in and flights to southern Somalia were set up. The think tank offers a conservative estimate that about 100,000 lives were saved as a result of international assistance, 10,000 of which occurred after U.S. troops arrived in December 1992. See also Operation Restore Hope Operation Deliverance 2011 East Africa drought References Further reading Allard, Colonel Kenneth, Somalia Operations: Lessons Learned, National Defense University Press (1995) Provide Relief United Nations operations in Somalia Somalia–United States relations 1992 in Somalia