In the early 1990's, Somalia was overrun by warlords who would hijack United Nations shipments of food and supplies in order to exchange them with other countries for weapons, resulting in the death of over 300,000 Somalis due to starvation. The United Nations asked for assistance from its member countries to protect the shipments from attacks. In 1992, the United States led anintervention force on a humanitarian mission to Somalia, named Operation Restore Hope in which 25,000 U.S. troops were deployed to Somalia to secure the shipments.