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Hundreds in Ohio Protest Somali's Shooting
COLUMBUS, Ohio -- Somali immigrants upset over the fatal police shooting of a man they say had mental health problems rallied Friday in protest, questioning the decision to use deadly force.
A crowd that Columbus police estimated in the hundreds alternated between standing in front of City Hall and marching around two city blocks chanting and yelling, "We want justice!"
Protesters held signs with statements such as, "Nasir Abdi needed medication, not a bullet."
Nasir Abdi, 23, was shot Wednesday as four Franklin County deputies tried to take him back to a mental hospital where he had been force-fed medications. Columbus police detectives said Abdi had threatened them with a kitchen knife with a 6-inch blade.
But Somali leaders said witnesses to the shooting never saw a knife in Abdi's hands.
"What we need is the facts to come out, and we want justice to be served," said Liibaan Ismail of Columbus, a spokesman for the protesters gathered outside City Hall.
Bashir Mohamud, a 23-year-old Ohio State University student, said he came to the protest because he didn't think Abdi had to die.
"The police just shot him without reason. I believe they could have saved him instead of killing him," said Mohamud, who came to Columbus from Somalia about three years ago.
Sheriff Jim Karnes said Friday that his office was familiar with Abdi and his mental health problems, though the deputy who shot him was probably not. Nevertheless, he said, his officers know their responsibilities.
"They know what they have to do to protect themselves and the public," he said.
Karnes said his officers have taken only the minimum training in dealing with mentally ill suspects required by the state.
"Unless it's mandated by the state, we probably don't have enough time or money to do it," Karnes said. "Training costs money."
Crisis training is a priority for a state Supreme Court committee studying the mentally ill and the court system.
Such training is voluntary for police departments in Ohio, though a growing number are taking advantage of it.
"You can't deal with a mentally ill person like you can with a person who is rational," state Supreme Court Justice Evelyn Lundberg Stratton said Friday. "They don't think the same way. They're in a delusion."
By ANDREW WELSH-HUGGINS, Associated Press Writer
Posted on Thursday 29th December at 15:23:02 Tsunami: Somalia's Slow Recovery
Close to the tip of the Horn of Africa in Somalia, a community is starting to recover from the tsunami of a year ago.
While the tsunami of 26 December 2005 did its worst damage in South-East Asia, the giant waves also travelled across the Indian Ocean to East Africa. Somalia, already one of the poorest and most war-torn countries of the region, was worst affected, with 289 people reported dead or missing.
The worst hit Somali community was on the peninsula of Hafun.
This community depends on fishing for lobster, shark and kingfish for export.
Some have small gardens in which they grow vegetables and cowpeas.
Livelihoods lost
When the tsunami struck it swept away boats, inundated plots and destroyed around 800 buildings.
Across Somalia a total of 600 boats were lost, depriving whole communities of a means of earning their living.
The first response came from the Western naval forces based in neighbouring Djibouti.
A German frigate, the Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, was sent to Hafun, and used its helicopter to airlift in some immediately needed supplies.
The United Nations and other relief agencies followed.
First food was delivered, and now longer terms needs are being addressed.
New town
A new town is under construction in Hafun - this time built 500 metres from the sea.
A covered market has been constructed, and a centre where women can meet.
Aid agencies have helped the fishing fleet get back in the water, with Action Aid so far providing around 40 boats.
New roads have been built and more help is promised for next year.
But Somalia has had no effective government since 1991, and until that can be rectified no amount of outside aid will really get its people back on their feet.
Posted on Monday 26th December at 16:25:56 Somali Capital Gets Local Council
Militia and civilian leaders in the Somali capital, Mogadishu, have sworn in a council to govern the city. Its first meeting is due on Monday.
There has been increasing tension between politicians based in Mogadishu, and the president and prime minister based in Jowhar, to the north.
The 64 members were chosen by a committee chaired by Somalia's minister of commerce, Muse Sudi Yalahow.
He said the committee had consulted widely before making the appointments.
"We had to talk to everyone willing to help Mogadishu stand on its feet again since our government is a government of reconciliation," he said.
"But we would not surrender to those working for the enemy of Somalia who are against the common good of the people in Mogadishu, and I don't want to point my finger at a particular person," he added.
The BBC's Hassan Barise in Mogadishu says Mr Yalahow's remarks have been seen as a reference to the president of Somalia, Abdullahi Yusuf, who has resisted calls to move his government to Mogadishu from Jowhar, north of the capital.
Local parliament
The body will function as a parliament for the capital.
It will have its first session on Monday under the chairmanship of its oldest member, and will elect the governor of Mogadishu, his deputies and the rest of his team.
According to the city's new constitution, the governor and his team should be coming from outside this parliament according to the constitution set up to run Mogadishu.
The ministers of national security, public works and many other ministers and MPs who addressed a crowd on Sunday praised the new parliament and pledged their full support.
The prime minister had already appointed another administration for Mogadishu, but the leaders of the new council have dismissed this appointment as illegal.
Posted on Monday 26th December at 16:24:55 Somali Leaders Question Teen's Arrest For School Bomb Threat
Leaders of Portland's Somali community said Wednesday that a 19-year-old immigrant and Portland High School graduate was wrongly charged with calling a bomb threat into the school.
Police arrested Hamza Hassan on Dec. 15 shortly after someone telephoned the school with a bomb threat and forced the evacuation of students and staff. He is charged with terrorizing.
"The phone call that was made to Portland High School was traced and led us to that residence, and our conversation with the suspect in that case convinced us that he, in fact, placed the call," Portland's Deputy Police Chief Bill Ridge said Wednesday.
But Hassan's father, Ibrahim Hirsi, and several Somali elders questioned the Police Department's investigation. Hirsi said his son has denied making the threat even though police claimed to have a confession.
"He said, 'I didn't do it,' " Hirsi said. "He had no lawyer. He was in the room alone with him (the detective)."
Hirsi said Hassan told him he was arrested and taken from the home and then questioned at the police station without being told he had the right to remain silent or to have a lawyer present. Hassan told him he felt confused and pressured, Hirsi said.
Hirsi also said he believes police made a mistake about the phone number because his daughter had been home sick and called the school at about the same time as the bomb threat was made.
Ridge would not discuss evidence to be argued in court, but said investigators followed standard procedures in the case. Ridge said Hassan was not arrested at the house. He was arrested later, after he agreed to go to the police station and then answered questions, Ridge said.
In such cases, investigators tell interview subjects they are not under arrest and are free to leave, Ridge said. Once they are arrested, however, they are told their rights to remain silent and have a lawyer present.
Hassan, who could not be reached Wednesday, is being held at the Long Creek Youth Development Center.
His father posted $290 bail at the Cumberland County Jail the day he was arrested. But Hassan was transferred to Long Creek instead of being released because authorities considered the bomb threat charge to be a violation of parole conditions he was under at the time of the arrest. Hassan had been committed to Long Creek because of juvenile offenses, according to the Cumberland County District Attorney's Office.
Somali elders said the accusations are troubling because of the negative attention and publicity. "We have to defend the honor of our reputation," said Ismail Ali.
Copyright © 2005 Blethen Maine Newspapers Inc.
Staff Writer John Richardson can be contacted at 791 - 6324 or at:
jrichardson@pressherald.com
Posted on Thursday 22nd December at 20:28:54 Two Million Facing Food Crisis In The South
NAIROBI, 22 December (IRIN) - An estimated two million people in southern Somalia are facing an imminent humanitarian emergency and acute livelihood crisis over the next six months, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) has warned.
"Somalia is experiencing a dangerous confluence of factors that almost certainly will lead to rapidly plummeting humanitarian conditions throughout southern regions," FAO said in a statement on Wednesday.
Nick Haan, the chief technical adviser for the Food Security and Analysis Unit (FSAU) Somalia, said that as the rainy season came to an end, it was clear that "the situation is going to evolve into a humanitarian emergency that could deteriorate as early as next month".
Haan said a poor rainy season, localised resource-based conflict, market disruption and internal tensions had all combined to create the current situation.
"Malnutrition levels as high as 20 percent in some areas of the south have reduced the resilience of the population to shocks," he added.
FSAU provides analysis of Somalia's food, nutrition and livelihood situation in order to promote food and livelihood security and is implemented by FAO.
"This year's main cereal harvest in July was the worst in a decade," FAO said.
The current projections, it noted, were in addition to ongoing humanitarian emergencies in Gedo and Lower Juba: "The failed Deyr (October-December rainy season) will both expand and make these crises more severe."
"Humanitarian actors have limited access to some areas most critically in need of assistance," it added. "Further, the upsurge of piracy off the Somali coast limits food supply lines for both commercial and humanitarian imports."
Philippe Lazzarini, head of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, Somalia, said it was imperative that the international community beefed up its operational capacity, particularly in southcentral Somalia, where access is difficult.
"There is an urgency to mobilise partners to address the existing need and to better approach the additional need that has been forecast," he said. "We are on the eve of a new humanitarian crisis."
Posted on Thursday 22nd December at 20:26:30 Needs Of Thousands Of IDPs Not Addressed - OCHA
OSSASO, 22 December (IRIN) - Between 370,000 and 400,000 internally displaced persons (IDPs) across Somalia are in urgent need of assistance and protection, a senior humanitarian official has said.
The IDP populations were living under appalling conditions in public spaces and buildings, reported the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) for Somalia. As most IDPs lived outside their clan area, they lacked their traditional coping and protection mechanisms.
"This IDP issue has been neglected for a very, very long time," Philippe Lazzarini, head of office for OCHA Somalia, said on Tuesday.
"Unfortunately, very little has been done," he added. "It is important to show visible progress to the community. We have to act."
Many settlements were overcrowded, and even though most shelters were built from recycled garbage, many IDPs had to pay rent to the owners of the land, Lazzarini noted.
"These people are living under miserable conditions, which affects their health," he said. "They lack protection and are subjected to harassment and sexual violence by their landlords."
Some groups had been displaced since the collapse of the Somali government in 1991, while others were forced to relocate as a result of natural disasters such as drought and floods.
The most recent group of IDPs had been attracted by the relative stability in certain areas of the country, such as Somaliland and Puntland in the north. The newer arrivals, as well as the return of previously displaced populations who originated from these areas, were putting enormous pressure on basic social services, stretching them to their limit.
Lazzarini noted that humanitarian agencies had urged authorities to provide space for the IDPs in order to allow for the provision of services.
In the northeastern town of Bossaso, the authorities had identified five plots for the relocation of IDPs. Aid agencies were planning to provide water and set up a school, a medical centre and latrines.
"At the beginning of next year, we should be able to start providing these services," Lazzarini said. "In the long run, these new sites will be integrated into the larger urban plan for Bossaso."
A recent survey carried out in an IDP settlement in Bossaso indicated that 67 percent of IDPs had no access to clean water and 76 percent of households had no access to sanitation.
Posted on Thursday 22nd December at 20:21:14 Somalia Faces Humanitarian Emergency
ISN SECURITY WATCH (Wednesday, 21 December: 14.42 CET) - Southern Somalia is facing a Humanitarian Emergency as the failed rains are predicted to lead to the poorest harvest in over a decade.
According to the Food Security Analysis Unit for Somalia (FSAU), implemented by the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), “livestock are dying and pastoralists are struggling to find water and fodder”.
The next rainy season is not expected until June 2006 and a preliminary estimate of up to two million people are likely to be in a “Humanitarian Emergency and/or Acute Food and Livelihood Crisis” for at least the next six months.
These findings are double the number of people projected in August to be in need of assistance. The UN says that the worsening conditions in Somalia will almost certainly lead to rapidly “plummeting humanitarian” conditions throughout the southern regions.
Posted on Wednesday 21st December at 17:07:36 Concern Over Protest Casualities In Yemen, Egypt
This is a summary of what was said by UNHCR spokesperson Jennifer Pagonis -- to whom quoted text may be attributed -- at the press briefing, on 20 December 2005, at the Palais des Nations in Geneva.
Yemen: UNHCR is deeply saddened by the death of a Somali man and injuries suffered by another five Somali demonstrators and four Yemeni policemen following an incident Saturday outside our office in Sana'a, where police dispersed an increasingly aggressive crowd that had been there since 13 November despite ongoing efforts to reach a solution.
Since the start of the protest, UNHCR had sought to reach a peaceful solution through dialogue. UNHCR staff met several times with the demonstrators to discuss their demands. We agreed to meet several of them, including more assistance for vulnerable refugees; more Somali-speaking UNHCR staff; and additional health care. One of their main demands, resettlement to third countries, is only an option for a few vulnerable cases and at the discretion of the resettlement countries themselves -- not UNHCR. Registration and provision of ID cards is also being arranged. Despite UNHCR's attempts to find a solution to end the sit-in, by last weekend the crowd had become increasingly aggressive and were blocking the entrance to our office and preventing staff from leaving. Yemeni security services decided to intervene to restore public order.
UNHCR is ensuring that the injured receive medical care and is assisting the family of the deceased. We remain in contact with the demonstrators to ensure our previous agreements are met.
Somalis entering Yemen are automatically granted refugee status by the government. At the end of October, some 79,000 refugees had been registered with UNHCR in Yemen, more than 68,000 of whom were from Somalia. Somalis in Yemen are able to work and to stay in the country indefinitely. Most Somalis live in urban areas, with roughly 7,500 staying at the Kharaz refugee camp in the Lahj governorate in the country's south.
Egypt: Despite an agreement reached on Saturday (17 Dec) between the leaders of the Sudanese demonstrators and UNHCR, a group of some 1,500 Sudanese are continuing a protest in Mostafa Mahmoud Park in Cairo. The leaders had agreed to end the demonstration after UNHCR had offered to respond to various needs. Upon returning to the park, however, the leaders were unable to convince the other demonstrators in the square to end their protest.
The Sudanese have been gathered in the park since September 29 to protest living conditions and to demand resettlement to third countries. Throughout this period, UNHCR has made all possible efforts to resolve the dispute, cooperating closely with Egyptian authorities, UNHCR Goodwill Ambassador Mr. Adel Imam, prominent local Sudanese figures, and many Cairo-based NGOs.
UNHCR is extremely concerned about the deteriorating humanitarian and health situation of those still in the park, especially the women and children. Last week, a young boy and a man died. The sit-in has also become a public order issue and of growing concern to Egyptian authorities.
UNHCR again appeals to the demonstrators to end their protest peacefully, as agreed, and to work with the office to implement the agreement reached on Saturday.
UNHCR is presently assisting over 24,000 Sudanese refugees and asylum seekers in Cairo -- or between 1-2 percent of the millions of Sudanese believed to be in Egypt. The overwhelming majority have not applied for refugee status. Sudanese refugees and asylum seekers in Egypt continue to benefit from protection and assistance, despite UNHCR's serious budget constraints and competing needs in other operations
Posted on Wednesday 21st December at 17:04:34 First Police Academy Opens In The Northeast
ARMO, 21 December (IRIN) - Hamdi Hershi Mohamed, a 17-year-old female police cadet, was among the 150 recruits marching on Tuesday around the compound of the newly opened police academy at Armo, northeastern Somalia.
"I have experienced the effects of the collapse of my government. I decided to come here to defend my country, advise my people [about] peace and revive the sovereignty of my country," Mohamed said.
"I have no fear, I'm ready to defend my dignity and that of the people of my country," she added.
The khaki-clad recruits were encouraged by hundreds of enthusiastic people waving twigs and small posters bearing pictures of Somalia's interim leaders, including Prime Minister Ali Muhammad Gedi, who was among the guests.
The Armo police academy, supported by the UN Development Programme (UNDP), is located some 100 km south of Bossaso.
Before the official opening ceremony, crowds of Somalis - with many women ululating - had lined the road from Bossaso to Armo to give Gedi a rousing welcome.
"The opening of the academy is a historic moment. It is the first such national institution that has been built in Somalia for a long time," said Maxwell Gaylard, UNDP Somalia resident representative and UN humanitarian coordinator.
"It will be the first step to the re-establishment of the rule of law and security in Somalia," he added.
The recruits, 130 male and 20 female, who joined the academy on 10 December were the first recruits. They were drawn from all over Somalia, Gaylard said.
"There are thousands of militia throughout Somalia, so there is a long way to go before law and order will be restored," Gaylard added. "Together with Somali authorities, we identified 500 militiamen who will soon be retrained in the academy."
The academy would be run and operated by Somalis themselves.
"What we found, quite frankly, is that if you give these young people an opportunity apart from the gun - and if the process is managed properly - they are usually eager to grab it," he added.
Gedi told the ceremony: "The young women and men who will come out of this training will form part of the new Somalia, where the rights of every Somali are protected and the rule of law will prevail.
"We cannot waiver in our quest to change the way things have been for the last decade-and-a-half and more."
Local leader said one of the main challenges facing the new police force was the large number of arms in the hands of civilians.
According to Haji Said Hussein, one of the elders of the Armo community: "In every house, there is a gun."
To contribute to the re-establishment of security in the area, his village had provided the land for the academy at no cost. The new institute also had economic value for the community itself, he said.
"Carrying a gun in Somalia is a natural thing," Gaylard observed. "We are not going to change the culture of Somalis overnight."
Hussein noted, however, that people were carrying guns to protect themselves. "If the rights of the people are protected, there will be no need for the guns," he said.
Gani Mohamed Haji Abdi, commander of the Armo police academy, hoped that the new institute, by incorporating women and former militia members from all parts of Somalia, would become part of the country's reconciliation process.
"We want an academy that is part of the people, from the people and for the people," he said.
The three-month training course would cover community policing, basic police training, nonviolent disarmament, physical fitness, self-defence, marching and theory. The new recruits would also be instructed on human rights, gender sensitivity, and child and minority protection.
The ultimate aim was to establish a professional civilian police force able to effectively contribute to the restoration of peace while gaining the trust of the community.
Abdellahi Salah Seruwah, who joined the Somali police force in 1974 at the age of 14 and is one of the senior teachers at the new academy, noted: "The police of Somalia was once among the best in Africa, but it disintegrated and we are reviving it right now."
"After 15 years, we don't want to fight anymore," he added. "We need to put down the gun. The new police are crucial for the internal, local peace."
However, a local aid worker expressed a degree of scepticism, saying one of the main problems facing the force was non-payment of salaries to some officers. As a result, many of them had to look for other sources of income, she said, which sometimes jeopardised their credibility.
"The men and women who finish this course will be proper officers. They will be paid when they leave this compound - through international assistance and Somalia's own revenues," Gaylard said.
UNDP would also assist the authorities to implement revenue-generating ideas and initiatives, he added, so that they would be able to pay their police force.
Posted on Wednesday 21st December at 17:03:14 Drought Kills Untold Numbers In Somalia
Mogadishu, Somalia (AHN) - Droughts in the East African country of Somalia have killed an unknown number of humans and livestock.
As malnutrition and low food supplies in the region take their toll on the Somali people, international agencies are asking for world help.
The Somali Red Crescent Society in Gedo says that aid is only reaching "some" of the numerous villages effected across Somalia.
According to a BBC interview with village chief, Ali Adam Warabeh, of the Fah-fah-dhun village, "at least two children, boys aged five and seven, have died of starvation," and "more two-thirds" of people in the village have left.
Warabeh says, "Fah-fah-dhun village had about 1,500 families, but now there are fewer than 500 families remaining."
Posted on Monday 19th December at 17:05:56 Somali Immigrant Killed By Yemen Police
A Somali refugee was killed in a clash on Saturday with Yemeni police, who tried to break up a month-long sit-in demonstration outside a U.N. agency office, Yemen's official news agency Saba reported according to Reuters.
The protesters assembled outside the office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in the capital 'Sana to appeal for help and protection against repatriation.
In the past few months several incidents have surfaced, concerning Somali illegal immigrants to Yemen. In September, at least 61 Somalis drowned after smugglers left them for twenty days in a faulty boat during a crossing to Yemen. A Danish ship sailing nearby saw the boat, rescued 39 people, and took them to Djibouti.
Two weeks beforehand, dozens of Somali migrants were forced off smugglers' boats before reaching the coast of Yemen.
Some 50,000 Somali refugees live in Yemen, which is also home to around 700,000 immigrants from other African countries. Thousands of Somalis and Ethiopians flee their countries each year, trying to escape poverty and violence. They attempt to cross the Gulf of Aden, hoping to reach Europe or the oil-rich gulf countries.
"Increasing numbers of African migrants are likely to risk their lives sailing to Yemen in the coming months due to the start of calmer weather in the Gulf of Aden," the UNHCR said recently.
The hazardous 185-mile (300-km) crossing to Yemen has already claimed the lives of hundreds of illegal migrants.
Posted on Monday 19th December at 19:29:14 Somali Sub-Clans Fight Over Trees, Seven Die
MOGADISHU (Reuters) - At least seven people have died in gunfights between two sub-clans during a dispute over whether to burn trees for charcoal in the southwest of lawless Somala, residents and hospital sources said on Sunday.
At least 12 people were also wounded in the sporadic clashes of recent days around three villages in the Tiyeglow district of Bakool region, they said.
"We are trying to stop the fighting between the two brother sub-clans, but until now we have failed to achieve a cease-fire," local elder Abdiyow Hussien told Reuters by telephone.
Residents said members of one local sub-clan tried to burn trees for charcoal, but another group opposed to the deforestation tried to stop them. Fires were started in the villages and gunfights raged, they said.
Fighting among Somalia's myriad clans and sub-clans has been common since warlords overthrew ex-dictator Mohamed Siad Barre 14 years ago and took over the Horn of Africa nation.
(Reporting by Mohamed Ali Bile)
Posted on Monday 19th December at 19:23:07 Children And Animals Die In Somali Drought
Mogadishu, Somalia - Hunger blamed on drought across southern Somalia has claimed the lives of both humans and livestock, aid groups and villagers say.
According to a recent survey by local aid agencies and the Somali Red Crescent Society in the Gedo region, more than 22 small villages and towns were hard-hit.
At least two children, a five-year-old boy and a seven-year-old boy, have died of starvation in Fah-fah-dhun, a village about 400km west of Mogadishu, in the past five days, according to the village chief, Ali Adam Warabeh
Warabeh said on Monday by two-way radio - the only means of long-distance communication available to many in a country where little infrastructure has survived years of clan fighting - that more than two-thirds of the people in his village had moved away in search of food and water for their herds and themselves.
Abdi Mohamed Abdulle, chief of the nearby village of El-Addeh, said by radio that shallow, hand-dug wells in the region had gone dry.
"The camels and goats are now on the brink of death," he said. "We lost more than 30 percent of our herds to the drought already."
Tanker trucks were bringing water from the main regional town of Bardhere, 320km west of Mogadishu, and selling it in the villages for about $7 (about R45) for a 200-litre barrel. Chief Abdulle said very few people could afford the water.
Shire Abdi Mohamed, the Somali Red Crescent Society co-ordinator in the region, said some aid from the international agency Care was reaching the region and being distributed to people and their cattle. Villagers said the aid so far was insufficient. - Sapa-AP
By Osman Hassan
Posted on Monday 19th December at 19:19:19 UN To Remove Landmines In Sudan, Somalia, Uganda
Dec 15, 2005 (NAIROBI) — The United Nations on Thursday launched anti-mine program in Nairobi, appealing for 85.4 million US dollars to remove landmines in Sudan, Somalia and Uganda.
Under the Portfolio of Mine Action Projects 2006, Sudan which is the most heavily mined African nation due to the 21-year civil war will receive 76.5 million dollars, Somalia 5.5 million dollars and Uganda 3.4 million dollars.
Speaking at the regional launch in Nairobi, John Dingley, program manager for United Nations Development Program (UNDP) Mine Action Somalia said the projects will cover all aspects of mine action — clearing, marking or fencing off mined areas, assisting victims and their families and providing mine risk education.
"The projects will also involve destroying the countries’ stockpiles of landmines and advocating for universal participating in treaties related to landmines and explosives remnants of war (ERW)," said Dingley.
"More money means shorter time in clearing mines and if we can have more money we can finish clearing these mines in the region soon," he added.
"We cannot over-emphasize the primacy of Mine Action to humanitarian, development and reconstruction activities. We need a multi-pronged approach to Mine Action," said UN Somalia Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator, Maxwell Gaylard.
"First, we must deal with mines at source — those who manufacture them should stop doing so as agreed in the Ottawa Convention. Secondly, we need to get rid of the mines that have already been planted that maim and kill people, and also block access to productive land and key services like water sources, schools and health centers," he said.
"We also particularly need to support those who have been injured by these weapons, through comprehensive inclusion of victim assistance in the wider development context," added Gaylard, who is also director designate of the UN Mine Action Service.
The World Food Program (WFP) estimates at least 2 million people are affected in securing their daily foods in Sudan and most known casualties occur in vehicle traveling along mined roads.
Posted on Friday 16th December at 18:39:32 UN Official Warns Somali Warlords Against Blocking Food Aid
Nairobi, Kenya, 12/16 - UN Secretary-General`s Special Representative for Somalia, Francois Lonseny Fall, Thursday warned Somali warlords against interfering with the delivery of aid to starving populations in Central and Southern Somalia.
He also asked the country`s interim government to stop impunity among the warlords, noting that escalating insecurity hampered the delivery of humanitarian relief, thereby putting the lives of people in urgent need of assistance at greater risk.
"Humanitarian assistance should not and must not be allowed to be held hostage to military, political or individual agendas," Fall said during the launch in the Kenyan capital, of an international appeal for Somalia.
"The killings of four Somali aid workers in 2005 are blatant crimes, which need to be condemned in the strongest terms," he said. "I could not stress enough the need and the urgency to provide a safe operating space for humanitarian agencies to reach these people."
The UN envoy said some one million people were at risk of starvation in Somalia, noting that safe access for humanitarian workers and critically needed supplies was the most immediate challenge to the survival of vulnerable populations.
According to him, the independence and impartiality of humanitarian work must be respected by all actors at all times.
Fall urged the Somali government to take measures against impunity and all crimes including murder, while the unprecedented rise of piracy off Somali coastline must stop.
"I fear that attacks on ships and the hijacking of vessels, if allowed to continue unchecked, will have an adverse impact on the already dire humanitarian situation inside Somalia," he said, and called on the international community to redouble humanitarian efforts to prop recovery, reconstruction and development in Somalia.
Fall also pledged UN support for efforts towards facilitating genuine dialogue and reconciliation in the war-torn country, adding that advancing the political process required patience, persistence and perseverance on the part of all stakeholders.
Posted on Friday 16th December at 18:30:33 Post-Tsunami Recovery In Puntland, Somalia, Shifts From Relief To Development
NAIROBI, December 16 (UNHCR) – Discouraged by season after season of drought, many herdsmen in north-east Somalia abandoned their dying flocks, trekked east and took up fishing off the Indian Ocean coastline, eking out a modest living to support their extended families inland.
Then tragedy struck. The tsunami generated by last December's Asian earthquake surged all the way across the Indian Ocean to the Horn of Africa, sweeping fishing boats and nets out to sea and wiping out entire villages in what was already one of the world's poorest countries.
A year on, UNHCR, other UN agencies and partners from non-governmental organizations are making the leap from providing emergency aid – food, plastic sheets, blankets and the like – to investing in development projects that should leave a 650-km stretch of Somali coastline better off than it was before the tsunami struck.
"The recovery efforts have already helped to bring the region back to its pre-tsunami conditions," says Ivana Unluova, Programme Officer for UNHCR's Somalia program, which is based in Nairobi. "Now longer-term development programmes are being prepared and initial projects are already being implemented.
"For example," she adds, "lack of access roads has been a big hindrance to development, and now we are building roads that will link the hinterlands with the coast and make economic growth possible. And in some communities, the communal facilities we are building will be the first these communities have ever had."
The UN's efforts are concentrated in a stretch between Hafun and Garaad in north-east Somalia, an area also known as Puntland. Although war-ravaged Somalia has limped along for years without a central government, Puntland is a relatively safe self-declared autonomous enclave with a functioning government.
"Because of its productive potential, helping the coastal region of Puntland and its related hinterland emerge from the cycle of economic stagnation and social deprivation will go a long way in promoting development, not just in the affected area but in a much wider section of Somalia," Unluova added.
Hafun, originally built some metres below sea level on a peninsula, was the area worst hit by the tsunami. All of the roughly 800 buildings on the seafront were totally destroyed, or damaged beyond repair.
Along the whole 650-km stretch, some 45,000 Somalis were estimated to have been affected by the tsunami. In a country devastated by nearly 15 years of civil unrest, there was no reliable system to record the number of deaths, but estimates ran as high as 150 or 200 dead.
The UN refugee agency has nearly finished distributing 15,000 plastic sheets, 45,000 blankets, 18,000 sets of cooking pots and kitchen utensils, 19,000 jerry cans and 35,000 sleeping mats.
"The humanitarian emergency response by the UN country team, including UNHCR, has gradually shifted from emergency response to recovery and rehabilitation and, where feasible, towards development," says Unluova. "These projects were implemented under an integrated approach where agencies brought their resources together to maximize the benefits and minimize the costs."
In devastated Hafun, a "new Hafun," set back 500 metres from the sea, is rising from the rubble. UNHCR, working through a Somali NGO and according to an urban plan laid out by UN Habitat, has constructed a Women's Resource Centre – where women can meet and discuss their problems and receive advice – and a covered market in the town.
UNHCR projects – costing $296,000 in all – are going on in other locations: a garbage collection system for Bender Beyla; reconstruction of the only secondary school in Eyl, a new market and a women's centre for Garaad, as well as access roads to Jeriban, to allow delivery of aid and help spark development.
"The women's centres, in particular, should help improve the well-being of Somali women along the coast, and should serve as a catalyst for women to assume greater responsibility in their social, political and economic lives," says Unluova, who has been deeply involved in UN efforts to help tsunami-affected areas of Somalia first recover and then develop.
As for the other UN projects, some of which have just begun, "their impact, combined with the start of the fishing season in October, is beginning to be felt in Puntland," says Unluova. "For thousands of people, the misery brought by the tsunami has started to lift."
By Kitty McKinsey
In Nairobi
Posted on Friday 16th December at 18:29:49 Primary Attendance Lowest In The World
NAIROBI, 15 December (IRIN) - Only one out of every five children in Somalia is enrolled in primary school, the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) said in its State of the World's Children report for 2006.
Somali children are further disadvantaged by disease, conflict and harsh environmental conditions, the agency added.
"The net primary attendance ratio is lower than anywhere in the world, at just 12 percent for boys and 10 percent for girls," the report said. "Years of underinvestment have left Somalia lagging behind the rest of the developing world in education."
UNICEF said the lack of a functioning national administration since 1991 had further constrained human development in Somalia, which according to the 2004 under-five mortality rate, has the sixth worst under-five mortality rate in the world.
Some 26 percent of Somali children are moderately or severely underweight, while 133 out of every 1,000 children will die in infancy, UNICEF said.
"An estimated 5.6 million Somali children continue to live without or with limited access to basic services and are highly vulnerable to preventable disease," UNICEF noted in its humanitarian action plan for Somalia in 2006.
The agency said despite continued conflict, efforts by local and international partners ensured that Somali children benefited from greater access to healthcare, education, clean water and an enhanced protective environment.
"Increasing national stability presents us with an opportunity to include all children in the formulation of the country's development agenda," said Christian Balslev-Olesen, UNICEF country representative for Somalia.
"Putting children at the centre of that agenda aims to ensure that we plan for the education, health and protection of every Somali child: including the poorest, most vulnerable pastoralist child in the remotest rural village," he added.
The full report is available at: [http://www.unicef.org/]
Posted on Thursday 15th December at 15:46:52 Sending Sons Home To Somalia For Safety
Rochester, Minn. — Afternoon prayer has just finished at Anab Garuf's apartment. It's dimly lit but filled with brightly colored silk flowers. She's lived here eight years with her children. Her husband died last year.
As her eldest son, Kayse, comes home they talk and she pours her cardamom and cinnamon tea for Biyod Shakia, another mother. Anab says her son attends college and stays away from drugs, but a lot of Somali males, she says, are selling drugs all over town.
"The Somali boys is walking, to groups," she says in broken English. "But they sell drugs, is use drugs, is not listen to the parents."
Rochester police say an increasing number of 17 to 22 year old Somalis are dropping out of school to sell cocaine and khat. It's a leaf which some African immigrants chew as a stimulant. Anab says the problem is unbearable now.
For years she and other moms saw their sons with plastic baggies full of pot, but they didn't know it was drugs.
Yet as more kids have dropped out of school and left home they've learned. Anab says moms and aunts have tried talking with their kids. Her approach has sometimes been even more direct.
She's chased dealers out of parks. Some kids, she says, run away when they see her. But others ignore her even after she's yelled at them and told them she's calling the police.
"I said, 'Stop selling the drugs!" she says. "He said, 'I need the money.' I said 'I'm calling the police.' He said "I don't care.'"
But Anab didn't call the police because, she says, they don't do anything. Maybe they arrest the dealer, she says, but he's out the next day.
Avni Patel is a project coordinator at the Intercultural Mutual Assistance Association.
"And so what these moms are saying is: 'This is mighty America? Why are kids not getting locked up for doing the wrong thing?'"
She says mothers called their friends crying about their sons. One mom would hear about another in a different clan with the same trouble. They felt helpless. So Anab and Biyod took it upon themselves to organize.
At a community meeting Avni says the mothers told her they wanted police to discipline their children severely and immediately. If they didn't, the teens would be lost.
"Oh, they want them deported," she says. "That is what my subgroup told me. Deport these children. If they are only in America to cause trouble for their family and their community they shouldn't be here. Send them back. And one of these mothers who's leading this effort did send her son back to Somalia."
Biyod is that mom. Her 15 year old cut school and dis-respected her. He wasn't selling drugs yet, she says. But Biyod saw no other solution. In March she returned to Somalia with him. He lives with her mother and uncle.
"Because why I sent him because I'm going to save him," she says. "That's why I send him. I'm going to save my kids, why I came here, yeah, civil war."
"He's happy too," Anab adds
Biyod says Somalia is safer today than it was at the start of the civil war in 1991. By and large representatives of Somalia agree. And Biyod says American culture got in the way of Somalian values.
The clan structure has weakened in the US, she adds. Back home people watched out for her son, and he respected adults. She knows he's in danger in the turmoil of Somalia. But she says it would be better to die in a civil war than live as a drug dealer.
Anab says for Somali people their children are their lifeline. She says just as Americans depend on social security for their retirement, Somalis depend on their children. Without their sons, they're lost.
"You use the social security. But Somalian people, we don't have social security," she says. "My social security is my kids. You understand? My social security is lost. That's why the Somalian parent is worried."
In Rochester many of these women are widowed or their husbands are missing. A lot of the women have limited job skills and little English. Still Anab says knowing their sons are selling drugs in the alley behind the tea house in downtown Rochester is a disgrace.
And at the end of that alley is the local YMCA, where 14 year old Farum plays basketball with his friends. Farum was orphaned by the war and lives with his grandmother. He says everybody knows Somali kids do drugs, and the moms are too late.
"If they started this a long time ago none of this would have started," he says. "But they didn't do that first. So it's kinda hard to stop it now cause there are a lot of people doing it."
Farum says he doesn't do drugs. But he's seen kids use, even in junior high school. And he says he knows the police aren't stopping them. He doesn't know why kids use. Social service studies show Somali teens feel unsupported by their families with parents often working two jobs. Farum agrees the abusers should be sent back.
"Somali ladies have to send the kids that are selling drugs back to Africa. That's the only way it's gonna stop, unless you send all of them back," he says.
It's highly unusual for Somali women to take this kind of leading role. They hold meetings with public officials. Anab and Biyod have walked into Congressman Gil Gutknecht's office and demanded he listen to them.
Anab's 16 year old daughter, Ishwaq, says the clan system that once watched out for the kids and had people visiting each other's homes constantly is now missing.
"And here obviously the clans get divided and mixed up and there's not that sense of community and I guess what their trying to do is unite as Somali parents," she says.
The women's action is a major break with Somalian tradition. Sharif Osman, a community leader says Muslim women in Somalia are taught to listen not speak.
"Woman should be polite," he says. "Should keep quiet. Should follow orders. Should accept what her man says, and that is how she will go to paradise." Sharif says he doesn't necessarily agree with that, but it's a widely held belief. He acknowledges the moms are taking over some of the father's roles. Sharif says dads feel they can't parent the way they did in Somalia where they could use corporal punishment. Now living in America they'll get in trouble with the law if they hit their kids.
"I could give him a slap or beat him and he would stop," he says. "But if I would do that, immediately the police and law enforcement would come and arrest me, so what can I do?"
Ultimately he says, under the traditional system father feel the mothers are responsible for their kids. If the moms fail, the fathers will divorce them.
But Anab and Biyod don't offer that as a reason for taking action. Anab says the drug problem has spread across Rochester and the future of the Somali community is at stake. She says if her friend's children are selling drugs it's like her kids are selling drugs.
"Because I am same country," she says "I am same language I am same religion. That's why."
Whether or not Anab and Biyod save the lives of their children they have changed their own. They are leading a community of women from a dining room table covered in silk flowers.
Posted on Thursday 15th December at 15:45:55 Students Defy Anarchy At Mogadishu University
MOGADISHU, Dec 15 (Reuters) - In gun-infested Mogadishu, students and lecturers defy bullets every day, determined to keep education alive in Africa's most anarchic city.
Eight years after Mogadishu University opened, hundreds of new students have signed up for classes, keen to get a degree despite living in one of the world's most dangerous cities.
Outside the university's walls, heavily armed militias, working at the behest of warlords, prowl Mogadishu's decaying streets, 14 years after a militia-led coup toppled dictator Mohamed Siad Barre and ushered in years of chaos.
"Students and lecturers are sometimes forced to lie down in between lectures and even during examinations as rival factions exchange fire," said one of the school's founders, Hussein Iman.
"Once a ceasefire is agreed, then students and lecturers carry on."
A group of audacious lecturers from Somalia, India and Kenya teach 3,000 students at the university -- three semi-completed buildings, comprising classrooms, a library and living quarters in a sparsely populated area of north Mogadishu.
Around 800 new students joined the university this year.
For security reasons, the foreign lecturers hardly ever see central Mogadishu, a city of 1 million people where militia fighters, sometimes in trucks mounted with anti-tank machine guns, patrol dirty streets lined with pock-marked buildings.
Iman, a 55-year-old California-trained agriculturist, and others opened the university in 1997 with backing from the Somali diaspora and Islamic relief agencies.
The university's oldest student, former army officer Mohamed Hashi, who at 62 is studying business administration, said he does not mind the bullets, since he believes education is the only way Somalia can lift itself out of ruin.
"Knowledge is power, and I'm happy to seek it at this old age," said Hashi, whose daughter graduated from the university in 2000. "I urge my fellow students to work harder and call upon the world to support education because ignorance is the source of chaos in Somalia."
"MIDDLE OF ANARCHY"
Somalia's National University, which had 15 faculties, 5,000 students and 700 teachers, collapsed during the chaos after 1991. In 1993, a group of former professors and intellectuals decided to open a new university but militia fighters looted the premises and the project was suspended.
The new college finally opened in 1997. It was recently ranked 79th out of 100 African universities in a survey by Interlab, a Spanish research group, despite operating in a nation without an effective government since Barre was ousted.
The school has appealed for $35 million from donors to finish building the campus. Staff hope this will draw foreign students and Somalis living in other countries to Mogadishu - and help open up the city to the world.
But that dream may take some time to realise.
Recently, rival militia groups fought a fierce battle on a stretch of wasteland next to the school.
Somalia's transitional government, formed last year in Kenya, is deeply split and has yet to make its impact felt in Mogadishu, still divided into a patchwork of militia fiefdoms.
Yet, the school's staff are optimistic.
"People are impressed by what we have achieved in the middle of anarchy," Iman said in his office as shots rang out nearby.
"I was shot but came back again to continue educating my people," he said, pointing to the scar on his left hand which dates from 1995. He does not know why he was shot.
Stephen Amiani, a nursing lecturer from Kenya, said he has high hopes for the school -- despite the fact that every time he steps off campus, he is protected by dozens of militiamen.
"As soon as facilities are complete I believe we will climb higher in the rankings," he said
The college runs four-year courses in Islamic law, English, education, Arabic, economics, computer science and nursing.
The courses are open to men and women and students pay $400 per year -- a large sum for many ordinary Somalis -- which covers a third of running costs per student, with charities and remittances from Somalis living abroad covering the rest.
The college also offers a chance to students who otherwise might have no opportunity for higher education.
"It's been very hard for my parents to educate me," second-year scholarship student Abdinasir Abdullahi, 20, said. "It's time for us to stop this useless war and get education which pays more decently than guns."
"FLYING BULLETS"
Swammy Paravasthu, an Indian economics lecturer who previously taught in Eritrea and Ethiopia, thinks his students do remarkably well given the daily pressures.
"The social tensions have given them an urge to study," he said. "Students are very serious here and are very inquisitive."
Most of the Somali lecturers spent their early careers overseas but returned to Mogadishu's mean streets because rebuilding Somalia, they say, means more to them than the comforts of expatriate life.
Sharif Osman, a bespectacled 45-year-old, brought home his expertise in computers after spending two decades in Canada. People in Mogadishu cherish his contribution, he said, whereas he was more or less unknown in Canada.
"Canada does not need my talent," he told Reuters, "People need my skills here and respect me."
Iman feels the school has made enough progress to allow him to think about retiring soon. He looks forward to watching his own children graduate from Mogadishu University.
"I don't think there is an institution that could achieve anything in this kind of environment. It's been terrible. We have been operating under flying bullets but I can safely rest now."
Posted on Wednesday 14th December at 15:48:58 Arms Embargo Must Not Be Lifted, ICG Urges
NAIROBI, 14 December (IRIN) - The International Crisis Group has warned that a recent request by the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) to lift a United Nations arms embargo on Somalia is a "recipe for instability" in the Eastern Africa Nation.
ICG urged members of IGAD to use their influence instead to "promote political dialogue" amongst divided factions of Somalia's Transitional Federal Government (TFG).
IGAD brokered the reconciliation talks that culminated in the establishment of the TFG in 2004. It comprises Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Sudan, Uganda and Somalia.
The body had recently called for a lifting of the arms embargo to enable the TFG to establish security institutions and law enforcement agencies in Somalia.
In a letter to heads of IGAD member states, ICG president Gareth Evans urged leaders of the organisation to reconsider their efforts to lift the UN arms embargo.
ICG underscored the importance of the embargo on Somalia for limiting violence and its consequences.
Evans said that the situation in Somalia remained of grave concern. Continued instability, the growing incidence of piracy and the persistent threat of terrorism all required action.
The transitional federal institutions moved to Somalia in June from Kenya, where they were created, but the administration has remained divided over two key issues: the location of Somalia's seat of government and the deployment of peacekeepers from neighbouring countries.
The president, the prime minister and their supporters pitched camp in Jowhar, 90 km north of Mogadishu, citing insecurity as the reason behind their decision not to work from the capital.
Other MPs, led by speaker Sharif Hassan Shaykh Aden, went to Mogadishu, saying they would attempt to restore stability to the capital, which was largely destroyed during nearly 15 years of factional warfare following the toppling in 1991 of the Muhammad Siyad Barre regime.
"In the absence of functioning national institutions, the wing led by interim President [Abdullahi] Yusuf has sought to monopolise the government at the expense of other groups," said Evans.
"These dynamics are reflected by divisions in the Somali public and failure of the transitional government, more than one year after establishment, to make tangible progress towards fulfilling its responsibilities. Most disturbing is the military build-up on both sides of that body and the threat of renewed violence if the differences are allowed to widen," he added.
Posted on Wednesday 14th December at 23:00:36 U.N. Appeals For $174 Million To Help Somalia
NAIROBI, Dec 14 (Reuters) - The United Nations appealed on Wednesday for $174 million in aid for Somalia next year, saying one million people were in dire need for food due to drought and insecurity.
Maxwell Gaylard, the U.N. humanitarian coordinator for Somalia, launched the appeal during a meeting with representatives of two dozen donor countries in Nairobi.
"Somalia is a country of continuing humanitarian crisis," he told reporters afterwards. "Malnutrition is high... One in every four Somali children do not reach the age of five."
"We are seeking to raise $174 million for Somalia in 2006."
Somalia plunged into anarchy and civil war in 1991 when warlords ousted former dictator Mohamed Siad Barre. Since then, hundreds of thousands have died from conflict and famine.
Long droughts, disease outbreaks and decreased humanitarian access due to dilapidated infrastructure and insecurity were now increasing Somalis' suffering, the United Nations said.
In 2005, the United Nations only received half of the $162 million it wanted to help Somalis, but officials were optimistic donors would heed their call this time.
Posted on Wednesday 14th December at 22:59:23 Arms Embargo Must Remain
Brussels, 13 December 2005: A regional call for the Somali transitional government to arm its security forces, despite the existence of the United Nations arms embargo, is a recipe for further instability in Somalia.
In a letter (see full text below) to heads of state of the Horn of Africa regional organisation, the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD), Crisis Group President Gareth Evans addresses the communiqué issued by IGAD’s Council of Ministers on 29 November 2005 and calls on leaders to reconsider their efforts to lift the arms embargo.
“I urge you and your IGAD colleagues to use your influence instead to promote political dialogue within the Transitional Federal Institutions for the purposes of reconvening the Transitional National Parliament and restoring a functioning national unity government”, says Evans.
The Somalia situation remains of grave concern not only for its neighbours but for also the broader international community. Continued instability, the growing incidence of piracy and the persistent threat of transnational terrorism all require concerted action.
Crisis Group has repeatedly underscored the importance of the UN arms embargo on Somalia for limiting violence and its humanitarian consequences. It remains critical today, as Somali legislators from feuding factions are engaged in an ongoing, if slow, discourse. International engagement could help bolster their efforts to reestablish parliament and resolve their differences.
Reluctance to endorse the current dialogue while at the same time challenging the arms embargo sends the wrong messages: that reunification of transitional institutions and restoration of a functioning parliament are unnecessary, and that force is a legitimate alternative to dialogue.
“IGAD, with the support of the wider international community, should spare no effort to pursue a political solution to the Somali crisis”, says Evans.
Posted on Tuesday 13th December at 12:38:09 Somali State to Offer Special Incentives to Investors in Livestock Trade
Chief Administrator of the Somali State Abdulahi Hassen said the state government would give special incentives to investors who engage in livestock trade.
Abdulahi, told WIC yesterday that the incentives to be given to investors who wish to engage in livestock trade and solve the long-running problems of pastoralists include the provision of free land, among others.
He said a study is underway to prepare 40,000 square metres of land near Jijiga town to investors for the construction of modern abattoir and a shelter for live animals to be exported. Similar supports would be extended in zonal towns known for their livestock resources, Abdulahi added.
The chief administrator said the recently launched construction of an international airport in Jijiga town with 70 million birr earmarked by the Federal Government would create conducive situation for the export of meat, dairy, hides and skin products to the Middle Eastern countries and called on investors to come to his state and engage in those sectors.
According to Abdulahi, the over 26 million cattle, sheep, goats and camels, on which the livelihood of more than 85 percent of the people in the region is dependent, are being transported illegally to neighboring countries and exchanged for commodities due to lack of market.
By WIC
Jijiga
Posted on Monday 12th December at 12:41:42 Somalis Protest Killings In Ethiopia
Dozens of members of the local Somali community demonstrated outside the Federal Building in downtown San Diego yesterday, trying to raise awareness of recent killings and destruction in the Somali-inhabited Ogaden region of Ethiopia.
Many wore red headbands to mourn those killed and waved signs at passing motorists. The demonstration began at 10 a.m. and continued through the afternoon.
Organizer Mohamed Huble said demonstrators want the U.S. government to look into the killings of 30 people in Qabridarree and the torching of the village of Fool Jeex by Ethiopian troops. Human rights groups have documented myriad human rights violations in the Ogaden.
Posted on Friday 9th December at 20:52:36 UN To Launch Humanitarian Appeal To Help Somalia
NAIROBI, Dec. 9 (Xinhuanet) -- The United Nations agencies will launch an appeal for 174 million US dollars next week to fund humanitarian activities for war-ravaged Somalia next year, according to a UN statement on Friday.
The statement, issued here by Humanitarian Coordinator for Somalia Maxwell Gaylard, said that the Consolidated Appeals Process (CAP) for Somalia will support 77 projects to meet the needs of the most vulnerable populations in the lawless country.
The CAP to be launched next Wednesday comes at a critical time for the Horn of Africa nation which is facing severe food shortages due to volatile environment.
"Focusing on the most immediate emergency needs in the country,the majority of which are in central and southern Somalia where humanitarian access is the most limited due to the volatile environment, the work and efforts of humanitarian organizations will provide a strong foundation upon which recovery and reconstruction activities can build upon," said the statement.
The statement said the 2006 CAP seeks to address these needs, particularly those of almost 1 million people, including 345,000 people in a state of Acute Food and Livelihood Crisis, 200,000 experiencing a Humanitarian Emergency and 370,000-400,000 internally displaced people.
Last month, donors and Somalis launched the Joint Needs Assessment process for the nation to develop a Reconstruction and Development Program.
Somalia has had no functioning central administration since the1991 ouster of strongman Mohamed Siad Barre until the new transitional government moved back earlier this year. Enditem
Posted on Friday 9th December at 20:34:54 Journalists' Union Receives Press Freedom Award
NAIROBI, 9 December (IRIN) - The National Union of Somali Journalists (NUSOJ) has won a prestigious international award in recognition of its "tenacious fight to defend the international principle of press freedom" in the Horn of Africa nation.
The international media watchdog Reporters Without Borders (RWB) awarded NUSOJ the Fondation de France International Press Freedom Defender prize at a ceremony in Paris on Wednesday.
"NUSOJ has tackled dozens of urgent cases, doing investigations and alerting international organisations and media, as well as writing reports on the media conditions in a country ruled by warlords," RWB said.
Accepting the award, NUSOJ Secretary-General Omar Faruk Osman said that in 2005 alone, the organisation had monitored, investigated and reported on more than 15 cases of murdered reporters, detained journalists, suspended media institutions, censored media houses and the intimidation of media professionals.
"Journalists are abused because of what they write, say or what they bring into the open - information that someone else wants to stay hidden," he said. "I hope [the award] will have a momentous impact on the current state of freedom of the press and expression in our war-wracked country."
Somalia, ranked 149th in the RWB Worldwide Press Freedom Index 2005, is considered one of the most dangerous places in the world for the media. Two women journalists, the BBC's Kate Peyton and Duniya Muhiyadin Nur of Mogadishu-based radio station HornAfrik, were killed in 2005.
Following the collapse of the late President Siad Barre's administration in 1991, faction leaders carved Somalia into rival fiefdoms, many of which have been wracked by violence for the past 14 years. A fledgling transitional government is yet to establish its authority across the war-scarred nation.
Posted on Friday 9th December at 20:16:41 Dead Birds Tested For Bird Flu
ADDIS ABABA, 8 December (IRIN) - Ethiopian authorities have launched an investigation into the recent deaths of nonmigratory birds to rule out the possibility of an avian flu outbreak in the Horn of Africa nation.
Dead birds from the Somali region in eastern Ethiopia and the capital city of Addis Ababa have undergone initial tests, but further analysis is needed, officials said on Friday.
"Before we can rule out avian flu we have to complete our investigations," said Dr Seleshi Zewdie, the head of the animal health department at the agriculture ministry.
Scientists had carried out preliminary tests on eight birds from three different locations. Zewdie said that additional results are expected later next week, but Ethiopia needs proper testing kits before a final determination can be made.
The birds are being tested for the virulent H5N1 strain of bird flu, which has devastated Asia's poultry flocks and killed at least 62 people since 2003.
The dead birds - all nonmigratory local pigeons - were discovered around drinking wells in Somali region in eastern Ethiopia and at two separate locations in Addis Ababa.
Authorities in Somali Region estimated that around 500 dead birds were found at wells and water points in the Deger Bur area. Some 10 to 15 birds were discovered at each site.
Zewdie said the reports of the dead birds - all received in the last two weeks - showed that the early-warning system set up by the government was working.
He thought the dead birds would not have contracted avian flu because they were local pigeons rather than migratory birds.
"All dead birds should be tested," he said. "It is difficult to rule out avian influenza until we have completed the tests, but it is not likely."
Experts believe that the Rift Valley countries of Ethiopia, Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania are at high risk for avian flu outbreaks because millions of migratory birds fly south to warmer climes during the European winter.
"[Bird] arrivals peak in December," said George Amutete, a senior research scientist in the ornithology department of the National Museums of Kenya.
A government-led taskforce in Ethiopia estimated that some US $53 million would be needed to fight a possible pandemic of the H5N1 virus of avian flu that affects humans.
Meanwhile, state media announced late on Thursday that Ethiopia would extend its 26 October ban on the import of all poultry products indefinitely.
The UN has also established its own crisis management team in Ethiopia for avian flu and is in the process of finalising a contingency plan to deal with a potential outbreak.
Posted on Thursday 8th December at 17:44:51 Parole Denied For Somali Woman Convicted
BISMARCK – Hawa Mohamed of Fargo still denies burning her 3-year-old son with an iron, which is one reason why the state Parole Board turned down her early release on Monday.
The board denied parole to the 28-year-old mother and said they would see her again in December 2006.
Mohamed, 28, was charged with felony child abuse in autumn 2001, five years after arriving in the United States as a refugee fleeing the Somalian civil war.
A Cass County jury convicted her in April 2002 and sentenced her to eight years in prison. She is also now subject to federal immigration laws.
If Mohamed isn’t paroled, her release date, counting good time, is December 2008. Neither she nor the board know what will happen when immigration officials take custody upon her release. She said she no longer has family in Somalia. They are in Minneapolis.
Appearing by interactive television from the Dakota Women’s Correctional Rehabilitation Center in New England, Mohamed told Parole Board member Budd Warren of Fargo the burns were accidental. She said she was in another room when she heard her son begin crying.
“I don’t know what happened,” she said. “By the time I go to the living room, he was burned.” She also said it was a one-time incident.
But the jury had heard testimony from officials who said her son had nine separate burns on his legs and buttocks.
“You never burned your son intentionally?” asked Warren.
“I never hurt my son. I love him so much,” she said.
When Warren asked her if she wanted to make a statement to the board, Mohamed began crying and said, “I want to go home. I want to see my family, my children, please.”
Mohamed gave birth to her third child in prison. Her parental rights have been terminated by the state.
Posted on Wednesday 7th December at 18:30:38 Parts Of Africa Have No Bird Flu Defences - OIE
PARIS, Dec 7 (Reuters) - Some countries in Africa have no defences at all against the possible arrival of deadly bird flu, the world animal health body said on Wednesday
Bernard Vallat, director general of the World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE), said countries like Namibia, Botswana and South Africa had services able to deal with the deadly H5N1 virus, but others like Somalia had no systems in place.
"Countries such as Somalia which are in civil war don't have veterinary services. And some of those countries might have migratory flows of birds infected with bird flu," Vallat told a French parliamentary committee on the virus.
"Around 30 African countries have benefited from significative European Union support to improve their veterinary support but about 15 countries have almost nothing," added Vallat, head of the Paris-based OIE.
Africa has yet to report a confirmed case of the H5N1 strain, which has killed nearly 70 people in Asia and led to the destruction of millions of poultry across the region.
Human cases remain relatively rare, but there are fears the virus could mutate into a form that passes easily from person to person, sparking a pandemic in which millions could die.
Experts believe the virus, also detected in birds in eastern Europe, could be spread to Africa by migrating wildfowl that fly to the east and centre of the continent as this time of year.
They fear that insufficient veterinary controls and the many backyard farms make Africa particularly vulnerable and the virus could become endemic in poultry as it has in parts of Asia.
Vallat said it was not necessary to be a rich country to combat the disease effectively.
He said Malaysia, South Korea and Romania had all managed to control the disease using policies recommended by the OIE.
"The most important thing is to have an early detection system, veterinary services in proximity and compensation that is as good as possible to encourage farmers to come forward without potentially losing money," he said.
Posted on Wednesday 7th December at 18:29:15 Leaders Appeal For Food Aid Following Crop Failure
WAJID, 7 December (IRIN) - Leaders in Somalia have urged the international community to help feed inhabitats of the southern region, where rain failure has led to the lowest cereal production in a decade and cattle dying for lack of water and pasture.
"I wish to appeal for emergency food aid. Any food that is sent to the Somali people reaches them," Hassan Muhammed Nur, popularly known as "Shatigudud", the minister for agriculture in Somalia's Transitional Federal Government (TFG), told IRIN on Friday.
According to the Food Security Analysis Unit for Somalia (FSAU), cereal production after the gu (long) rains from April to June in southern Somalia was the lowest in a decade at 73,000 tonnes, or 44 percent of the average yield during the years of instability that followed the collapse in 1991 of the Muhamad Siyad Barre regime.
"Both sorghum and maize production suffered significant losses due to a combination of below-normal and delayed rains, aggravated by flooding, high crop pest damages, and civil insecurity in some areas," noted FSAU, which is managed by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization and funded by the European Union, the US Agency for International Development and various NGOs.
Insufficient rainfall thus far during the dyer (short rains) from October to December does not bode well for the region.
"Drought has had a devastating effect. Farmers, who are not known to move frequently, have been forced to migrate to towns," said Ahmed Mohammed Abdi, the TFG's deputy minister for minerals and water. "The rains didn't come and the situation is getting worse."
Shatigudud said the recently established TFG lacked the resources to help those affected by food shortages. "The government has no budget. It is being hindered by lack of finances," he said.
Isak Ali Mohamed, a 70-year-old farmer outside Wajid, said he had harvested nothing from his 80-square-metre farm, which was planted with papaya, spinach, tomatoes and other vegetables.
"The yield was zero," he said, adding that people had resorted to burning and selling charcoal to raise money for food.
According to FSAU, the livestock situation was also rapidly deteriorating in southern Somalia, especially in the agro-pastoral and pastoral areas of Gedo and Juba.
"Already cattle deaths are reported in the hinterland of Gedo and Juba regions - due to lack of pasture and water," FSAU said in its November report.
"Pasture and water sources were depleted early in the traditional grazing areas due to the below normal gu 2005 rains, which prompted early (May/June) movement of people and livestock towards the Juba riverine and coastal areas of Kismayo," the agency said.
Posted on Wednesday 7th December at 18:27:45 New Govt's Move To Tackle Piracy Hits A Snag
An attempt by the Somali Transitional government to stop its coastline from being declared a "war zone" by contracting a US-based company to fight piracy has run into trouble.
It has emerged that Top Cat Marine Security, which signed a two-year, $55 million deal with the Somalia government a week ago, failed at one point last year to meet its payroll, according to The Post and Courier, a newspaper published in Charleston, South Carolina, where it had been operating.
Questions have also been raised about the government's ability to raise the money needed for the operation. Prime Minister Mohamed Ali Gedhi left Nairobi for Jowhar in Somalia immediately after signing the contract with Peter Casini, Top Cat’s head of research and development.
The spokesman in the Somali president's office, Yusuf Ismael, had promised to answer queries from The EastAfrican, but was yet respond at the time of going to press. If the transitional government is able to tackle the piracy menace, it will be in a stronger position to seek assistance in tackling the warlords who have made it difficult to operate in the country.
Early last month, Mr Gedi narrowly escaped an assassination bid while travelling through Mogadishu. An explosion tore through a convoy of cars carrying the PM, killing six people, but leaving him unhurt.
In its edition of October 16, 2004, The Post and Courier reported that, "Several different businesses linked to Casini lasted four years or less before going under, and in 1997 he ended up in personal bankruptcy."
But Mr Casini contended that he is listed in the bankruptcy documents only because he was the designer for boat companies that collapsed. But court records list him as holding many jobs in the companies, including vice-president.
"His businesses all failed," US Bankruptcy Judge Raymond Lyons wrote in a 2004 opinion, according to the newspaper. "He has a foreclosure judgment against his residence and is behind in child support and taxes. He has relied on the generosity of family and friends for survival."
But the company's vice president for public relations, Maryann Johnson, said the article was written years ago, by a small town reporter whose sole source of information was a convicted felon. "Top Cat was never contacted directly for comment on this article, but rather the reporter chose to undertake a smear campaign to camouflage small-town corruption."
She said Top Cat remains financially secure and stable with contracts around the world with some of the largest defence contractors and that an employee's personal information has no bearing on the stability and structure of the company. "Mr Casini is head of research and development and has been awarded the notable honour of being named one of the top three boat designers in the world. He is an employee of and not the owner of the company. There are over 50 major stockholders," she said.
In signing the deal with Somalia, Mr Casini said his company would target a mother ship off the Somali coast that is launching smaller craft to attack commercial vessels.
Despite the negative publicity, Top Cat has carried out contracts with government agencies in the United States. Last February, it delivered its Cobra Predator Patrol Boat to a counterterrorism team in the US state of Maryland. It was purchased to safeguard a nuclear power plant near Washington.
A United States senator has also praised the effectiveness of Top Cat’s Cobra Predator. "This war is about speed, mobility, strength and character and Top Cat has all of that," said Senator Lindsey Graham of Florida following a demonstration of the boat last year.
Says the The Post and Courier story, "It seemed an ideal pairing when the builder of bullet-proof boats announced in April that it was moving operations to the job-starved South Carolina town of St Stephen and could eventually employ as many as 250 people.
Six months later, St. Stephen finds itself in court, and the split is not amicable. The 150 boats that Top Cat Marine Security Inc. was expected to produce in its first year of operation out of an old electric plant off S.C. Highway 45 never materialised. Neither did the jobs.
"Instead, the door to Top Cat is padlocked, the company is facing eviction, one of its top officials has been arrested on a charge of issuing a fraudulent check and a default judgment was issued against the company Monday.
"'We got, in plain old English, bamboozled,' said Vincent Chappell, CEO of Onyx International Inc, which shared warehouse space with Top Cat and tried to help the company with its relocation. 'People opened up their doors, not just us, the entire community.' "Vendors and others who find the Top Cat door padlocked often stop at the Onyx office to ask if the boat company still is in business or when its employees will be there, she said."
Reported by Kevin J. Kelley in Washington and a staff writer in Nairobi
Posted on Tuesday 6th December at 18:32:21 Somali Man Celebrates New Post
Hussein Samatar said he owes a lot to the Minneapolis Public Library system. Now he has a chance to give back.
Since the mid-1990s, he and his family have clocked countless hours in Franklin Community Library, learning English and reading Somali books.
Last week, Mayor R.T. Rybak appointed the Somali immigrant to the Library Board. He joins an eight-member Board of Trustees, which administers a budget of more than $20 million.
Six members are elected, the mayor appoints one and the City Council chooses another.
Monday night, Samatar, the mayor and Somali community leaders celebrated the appointment at the recently renovated Franklin Library in south
Minneapolis. At least 100 people attended, feasting on sambosas and flatbread while marking what many said is a milestone for the local Somali community, the largest in the United States.
“I will be speaking in three languages tonight,” Samatar told the standing-room-only crowd before thanking the mayor and his supporters in Spanish, Somali and, mostly, English.
Samatar, who has served as director of the African Development Center in south Minneapolis since 2002, said he was “humbled” by the appointment and would work to improve the library system for immigrants and all Minneapolis residents.
“He is a very articulate spokesperson for why libraries are important,” said Rybak, who appointed Samatar after the previous appointee, Laura Waterman Wittstock, won election to the board last month.
“After the election, I did feel there needed to be more views from broader communities at the table,” he said.
Kit Hadley, library system executive director, said Samatar brings helpful financial experience to a library system facing a funding crunch.
Three years after voters “generously” invested in renovating and constructing new library buildings, “the bottom fell out of the operating budget,” she said.
That means libraries are open fewer hours and are understaffed, she said.
Samatar vowed to reverse those trends.
The appointment is a step in the right direction, said Ahmed Yusuf, a case manager at the Community-University Health Care Center a few blocks from the event.
“It means that Minneapolis recognizes that there is a Somali community and that it is an important part of America,” he said.
Somali Student Association president Mohamud Ahmed said public officials now will be more responsive to the community.
“Having a voice in the local government means you have a voice in whatever decisions are being made,” said Ahmed, who is also an immigrant, in the group’s Coffman Union office.
Samatar, a 2003-2004 public policy fellow at the Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs, said right now he’s focused on fulfilling his new role. But he said he’s not ruling out a future political career.
“This time, it’s just based on making sure everyone has a book to read,” he said.
Ahmed, a biomedical engineering junior, said he hopes Samatar and other educated Somalis dream big.
Although the appointment was a huge step forward, he said, “We shouldn’t be satisfied with (the library board) level.”
Before Rybak spoke Monday night, a young Somali boy told him that he wants to be a politician someday.
“I look forward to the day when I can vote for Somalis,” Rybak said.
Posted on Tuesday 6th December at 17:29:28 Elders Urge Compromise in Parliamentary Rift
The upper house of parliament in Somalia's breakaway republic of Somaliland on Monday endorsed an opposition-backed speaker whose election last week sparked scuffles among lawmakers.
In addition, the Guurti - composed of unelected Somaliland elders - urged President Dahir Riyale Kahin, whose ruling Union of Democrats (UDUB) party had opposed the selection of Abdullahi Irro as speaker, to accept its decision.
"The Council of Elders endorsed the election of the speaker of parliament and two deputies, all from the opposition," said UDUB lawmaker AbdulKadir Jirbe.
"We have accepted it and are calling on the president do the same," he told AFP.
In a statement, the Guurti urged Kahin to follow the lead of his party's lawmakers and back down on its opposition to Irro's election, which had been met with fistfights in the lower house.
Irro, backed by the opposition Kulmiye (Solidarity) and UCID (Justice and Welfare) parties, was elected on Wednesday despite UDUB claims that the move was illegal because it came after parliament's adjournment.
The rift had threatened to overshadow successful legislative elections Somaliland held in September in which the UDUB won 33 of the 82 seats while Kulmiye and the UCID took 28 and 21 seats respectively.
The vote, the enclave's third multi-party polls, was held amid high hopes it would herald international recognition for Somaliland which seceded from Somalia proper in 1991 after the ouster of strongman Mohamed Siad Barre.
While much of Somalia has disintegrated into lawlessness without any functioning central government, Somaliland has remained relatively peaceful with a homegrown administration in charge.
Despite its demands, the international community has refused to recognize the self-declared republic, fearing it could further destabilize the anarchic nation of 10 million.
Posted on Tuesday 6th December at 17:26:12 Abdulahi Yusuf Leaves For Saudi Arabia
Somali president, Mr. Abdulahi Yusuf Ahmed flew from Johar airport to Saudi Arabia for OIC (Organization of the Islamic Conference) meeting that will open on this coming Wednesday in the holly city of Mecca.
Presidents and kings of Muslim nations will discuss many issues including tackling terrorism, closer cooperation among Muslim countries and eventual unified immigration system. Rulers of Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and other Gulf States close to USA will sit face to face with presidents of Iran and Syria, two of President Bush's three axis of evil. Iran president is one of very few Muslim leaders who came to power through elections. Pervez Musharraf of Pakistan overthrew democratically elected government and suspended national constitution in 1999. Most Gulf States are run by kingdoms.
Before boarding the plane, the president talked to the media about his trip and what he wants to accomplish during the conference where he'll get the chance to sell his agenda to other Muslim nations. He said he fully supports the upcoming meeting between his government and Mogadishu faction leaders that will take place in Kismayo, Somalia's third largest city.
Somalia has been in chaos for a quite sometime now and president Abdulahi was elected after a two year reconciliation conference that was held in Nairobi Kenya last year. He seems to be turning Somalia to the right direction and his government is enjoying universal recognition and unsurpassed support from international community.
Posted on Tuesday 6th December at 17:22:32 Rival Somali Regions Swap Prisoners Of War
NAIROBI, Dec 6 (Reuters) - Rival Somali enclaves have swapped 36 prisoners captured during a short short war last year, in a sign that reconciliation efforts are making progress, mediators said on Tuesday.
Fighting erupted in a disputed border region in October 2004 between Puntland and the rival enclave of Somaliland, which accused Somali President Abdullahi Yusuf, a former Puntland leader, of attacking it. At least 100 people were killed.
On Monday Somaliland freed 12 Puntland captives and Puntland released 24 Somaliland prisoners at a ceremony at Ari-Adeys village in the Sool area on the border, said the War-torn Societies Project (WSP), a conflict mediation organisation.
Rival captives hugged each other as they were exchanged.
"This event is a significant confidence-building gesture by both administrations," said Philippe Lazzarini, an official at the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.
A WSP statement said: "Both sides expressed willingness to build on the goodwill manifested by this successful collaboration, which is already contributing directly to reduction of tensions in the area."
The swap follows six months of negotiations between the regions' governments, which are unrecognised internationally.
WSP has worked for years to build reconciliation in Somalia, a country of up to 10 million that descended into anarchy in 1991 following the ouster of dictator Mohamed Siad Barre.
Yusuf, elected Somali president in October 2004 at national reconciliation talks, has pledged to work peacefully with Somaliland as he tries to restore order to the country.
Somaliland, an enclave on the Gulf of Aden, declared independence from Somalia in 1991 and has since enjoyed relative peace. But it has fought sporadic clashes with Puntland for years over the ownership of several border areas claimed by Puntland's leaders as their own on the basis of ethnicity.
Somaliland, a region of 3.5 to 4.5 million, won independence from Britain in 1960 and quickly joined neighbouring ex-Italian Somalia to form a united republic.
But an uprising against Siad Barre in the 1980s was followed by years of devastation as he turned his forces against the northwestern enclave.
WSP and other peace groups are trying to build grassroots reconciliation in several areas in Somalia in a project funded by the European Commission, Britain, the United States, Sweden, Norway, Finland and Denmark.
Posted on Tuesday 6th December at 17:19:48 Lack Of Rain In The Eastern Somali Region
ADDIS ABABA, 5 December (IRIN) - Critical rains have failed in eastern Ethiopia, raising fears for vulnerable pastoral communities already living under precarious circumstances, aid organisations warned on Friday.
The livestock-dependent eastern Somali region, which has suffered successive droughts as well as economic hardship, should have seen rains at the beginning of October, according to the USAID-funded Famine Early Warning Systems Network (FEWS Net).
"These rains [from October to December] are critically important to the livelihoods of pastoralists, as they recharge water sources and replenish pasture, and thus sustain livestock through the dry-season from December to April," said FEWS Net in an emergency report.
Somali region is dependent on two rainy seasons, known as the gu and the deyr. The gu rains provide 60 percent of the water needs for the region, while the deyr 30 percent.
It is one of the driest and inhospitable areas in Ethiopia, where average rainfall in some areas is as low as 250 millimetres per year. Temperatures hover around 30 degrees Celsius every day.
The UN World Food Programme (WFP) said in its weekly bulletin that food was being sent to the region, which is the size of Great Britain. Regional authorities had asked for more support.
"The food security situation in most of the seven deyr rain receiving zones of Somali Region continues to be worrying, with poor pasture and livestock conditions emerging due to poor rainfall," WFP explained. "Food is currently being dispatched to areas of concern."
Four million people live in Somali region, which shares a 1,600 km porous border with Somalia. Many eke out a nomadic existence, herding livestock and selling their animals at market.
"This year, the performances of deyr rains in Somali Region have been very poor," FEWS Net added. "When the deyr season fails, the population in these areas usually experiences extremely stressful water and pasture shortages until the gu (March - May) rainy seasons."
Only a handful of aid agencies work in Somali region, an area that has witnessed serious insecurity in recent years.
"In recent years a combination of successive droughts, high cereal prices, conflict, and the ban on livestock imports to markets in the Gulf States has rendered the livestock-dependent population highly food insecure and increasingly vulnerable to poor seasonal rainfall performance," said FEWS Net.
Posted on Monday 5th December at 17:47:33 Pirates Force Aid Detour
The World Food Programme has delivered food aid from Kenya to Somalia by road because ship-owners are too worried about pirates to risk their vessels.
Fourteen trucks have arrived in the southern Somali town of Wajid after a 1,200km trip from the port of Mombasa.
Earlier this year, a WFP-chartered ship carrying food aid to Somali victims of the tsunami was hijacked.
After poor rains in October, it is feared that Somalia is heading for its worst cereal harvest in a decade.
After 14 years without a government, Somalia is one of the poorest countries in the world.
WFP says that malnutrition rates among children under five in southern Somalia are as high as 20%. A rate of 15% is considered an emergency.
Militia check-points
"It is 25-30% cheaper to bring our food aid in by sea and boats can carry much more, but we have had to resort to this land route because ship-owners feel it is too risky to sail to the south," said WFP Somalia Country Director Zlatan Milisic.
The coast off Somalia has become one of the world's worst areas for pirate attacks, shipping experts say.
Aid agencies have avoided the land route for the last five years because of the cost and danger.
The convoy passed through 25 check-points set up by some of the militias, which have divided Somalia into a patchwork of rival fiefdoms.
The gunmen normally extort bribes to let vehicles pass but the WFP did not say if any money was paid.
Some 500 metric tons of aid was delivered to 720 displaced people in Wajid, the WFP says.
Three more trucks broke down during the arduous 13-day journey and are expected to arrive within the next few days.
"It's not enough, because we've been hungry for so long. We need utensils, beddings, milk and medicine," Nurie Liban, a 62-year-old mother of eight, told Reuters news agency after receiving her food on Sunday.
"But I'm grateful today I can cook for my family."
With such a poor harvest predicted, the WFP says that much more aid is needed.
"We're going to have to double or triple our efforts," spokesman Peter Smerdon told the BBC's Network Africa programme.
He said at least 700,000 people would need food aid in the coming year.
Posted on Monday 5th December at 17:46:33 UN Says AIDS Infection In Somalia Can Be Averted
Lawless Somalia still has an opportunity to be one of the few countries in Sub-Saharan Africa to avert an HIV/AIDS epidemic of major proportions, the United Nations said Thursday.
A statement issued in Nairobi from UN Development Program (UNDP) Somalia said a latest survey indicates a Somali-wide HIV rate among women attending antenatal care clinics of around 0.9 percent.
This, the UN agency said, is relatively low in comparison to surrounding countries.
"Women, media, youth, men, religious leaders, business people, political leaders and professionals all have a unique strength that they bring to the fight against AIDS," said Elballa Hagona, UNDP Somali country director and chair of the UN theme group on HIV/AIDS.
"Together with the local authorities, UN agencies, local and international NGOs and community based organizations, and especially religious leaders, a critical opportunity exists to generate a society-wide response to HIV/AIDS," said Hagona.
Citing the theme for World AIDS Day 2005 -- "Stop AIDS. Keep the Promise." -- the UN said Somalis and their partners must rise to the challenge of countering HIV/AIDS at personal, religious, community, organizational and governmental levels.
"Such unity is crucial to ensure a continuum of prevention, treatment, care and support with the common goal of keeping infection low," Hagona stressed.
He said confronting AIDS is a crucial task for the Transitional Federal Government and it should rise to the challenge and mobilize society so that youth, women and girls who are most vulnerable are equipped to protect themselves from HIV/ AIDS -- a disease which knows no disagreement, clan, faction or political allegiance.
The statement said the UN country team and partners have mobilized resources through the Global Fund to fight AIDS, TB and Malaria, the UK Department for International Development (DFID) and others sources which are now being used in a multi-faceted approach to combat HIV/AIDS.
"Among the significant achievements of this effort has been the launch of HIV/AIDS commissions in Northwest Somalia (Somaliland) and Northeast Somalia (Puntland)," said the statement.
It noted that plans are underway to create a coordinating structure for Central/South Somalia.
"The commissions aim to increase and improve coordination for the prevention, treatment, care and support of those infected and affected with by HIV/AIDS," the UN said.
"One of the major challenges is the need to break the silence, and address the denial which has surrounded HIV/AIDS. It is vital that HIV/AIDS becomes visible, stigma is challenged and people living with HIV/AIDS are encouraged to be open about their status, and are free to continue contributing to community life. This requires visionary leadership and significant individual courage," said Leo Kenny, UNAIDS Country Coordinator for Somalia.
"Keeping infection low won't happen unless we break the back of stigma and discrimination and address the needs most of most vulnerable groups and mobile populations," Kenny added.
Posted on Friday 2nd December at 18:16:00 Journalist Who Reported On Arms Embargo
A Somalia faction led by a Cabinet minister has detained a Somali journalist after he reported the group has been violating a 2004 peace deal and a U.N. arms embargo, an international media watchdog reported Friday.
The Juba Valley Alliance detained Ahmed Mohammed Aden on Monday, accusing him of posting "false information" in an online article, the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists said, quoting the National Union of Somali Journalists.
Somalia has had no effective government since opposition leaders ousted a dictatorship in 1991 and then turned on each other, carving the nation of 8.2 million into a patchwork of fiefdoms controlled by warlords.
Somalia has been struggling to re-establish a government and rule of law. But a transitional government formed last year is weakened by divisions that prevent it from operating in the capital, Mogadishu, and other parts of the country.
Barre "Hirale" Aden Shire, leader of the faction holding the journalist in the Indian Ocean port town of Kismayo, is also the reconstruction minister in the transitional government. Attempts to reach Shire for comment on the Committee to Protect Journalists' report were not immediately successful.
Committee to Protect Journalists Executive Director Ann Cooper called on the transitional government and Kismayo authorities to ensure Aden's release, and also called on Somali President Abdullahi Yusuf "to publicly condemn continuing attacks on the Somali press and to help bring them to an end."
Lawless Somalia is particularly hazardous for reporters.
A British Broadcasting Corp. journalist was shot and killed by Somali militiamen in the country's capital in February.
Posted on Friday 2nd December at 18:14:02 Scuffles Mar Opening Of Somaliland's Parliament
HARGEYSA, 1 December (IRIN) - The official opening of the newly elected parliament in the self-declared republic of Somaliland on Tuesday was marred by student demonstrations and scuffles by members of parliament, witnesses said.
Hundreds of secondary school students took to the streets in Hargeysa, Somaliland's capital, protesting the alleged killing by police of a student from Farah Omar Secondary School in the city on Monday night.
They threw stones at the police, who responded by firing into the air to disperse the protesters. A number of students were arrested.
Despite the disturbances, the newly elected MPs took their oath of office. Somaliland's President Dahir Rayalle Kahin chose Mohamed Abid Dheere, the oldest member from the ruling party, to chair the opening session.
A skirmish broke out when the 48 members of the opposition objected to the temporary chairman's decision to adjourn the session after the opening ceremony.
Armed policemen stormed parliament, turned off the microphones and ordered everyone to leave. A brawl ensued, with MPs hurling chairs at each other and at the police and exchanging blows.
Policemen whipped reporters and barred them from taking pictures or TV footage of the drama. Some cameras were damaged. Two reporters were briefly detained, and police have been accused of confiscating some equipment.
Opposition members met afterwards and elected Abdirahman Mohamed from the Justice and Welfare party as their speaker and Abdiaziz Samalle and Bashe Mohamed from Kulmiye (Solidarity) party as the first and second deputy speakers respectively.
"The minimum number required in the house for the election of the speaker is 42. We (the opposition) were 48 and conducted the election legally. I welcome our colleagues from the ruling party to join in carrying out our business in parliament, and I will perform my duties according to the law," said the newly elected speaker.
The temporary chairman of parliament, however, said no legitimate elections had been held.
"There was no election. What happened today was null and void and illegal. The election of the speaker will be conducted on Saturday as I suggested," said Dheere.
"I adjourned the election because the atmosphere today was not good. Students were rioting near the parliament. I believe the riots were planned by the opposition, and tension in Hargeysa was high," he claimed.
Somaliland voters went to the polls on 29 September to elect the 82 members of the region's parliament.
The territory in northwestern Somalia declared its unilateral independence from the rest of Somalia in May 1991, following the collapse of the administration of former President Siyad Barre.
It has, however, not been internationally recognised as a sovereign state.
Posted on Thursday 1st December at 16:06:25 Local Community Celebrates Bigger, Better School
HAFUN, Somalia, December 2005 - Like an oasis, the new primary school in Hafun is a welcome sight amid the devastation still evident almost one year after the Indian Ocean tsunami.
With its bright blue roof, red columns and pristine white walls, the Hafun Community Learning Centre is an oasis of sorts. It is an area of hope and opportunity for both children and adults in this remote fishing village on a peninsula, ten hours drive from the town of Bossaso in northeast Somalia.
While a new housing settlement, an 18-room hospital and water and sanitation supply system are still under construction, the Learning Centre has already opened its doors.
On Monday 14 November it welcomed over 300 pupils between the ages of six and 15, many of them attending school for the first time.
Bishara Said Musa, aged 11, was one of them. A seemingly shy girl, her determination and assertiveness become apparent as she relates how she came to join the school. “I used to stay at home and help take care of my brothers but when I heard about the new school from my friends I said to my grandmother ‘The other children are going to school. I want to go to school too.’ “
Bishara is now enrolled in primary school along with her brothers Abdullah, aged seven, and Sahal, aged six.
“When I grow up I would like to be a teacher so that I can educate others,” she says. “I would like to learn and improve my life. And I would like to go to other places to see what is happening in other parts of the world and share it with my people.”
Ahmed, aged 10, is another newcomer to school. He had spent the early part of the morning at the water’s edge collecting, cutting and skewering fish from landing boatmen. “My mother said ‘Go to the beach and get fish and then you can go to school’.”
Asked if he wants to become a fisherman, he shakes his head vigorously: an emphatic ‘No.’ He too wants to be a teacher. Right now, he’s looking forward to learning mathematics and how to read and write in English and Somali.
The Centre is built on land donated by the community. At a cost just over $65,000, it was constructed by the community with funds contributed by the US Fund for UNICEF and the UK Committee for UNICEF. The Centre includes six classrooms, an office, a storeroom, boys’ and girls’ latrines, a meeting hall and a large playground. It is furnished throughout with new desks and benches and equipped with teaching and learning materials, including textbooks, chalk boards, slates and dustless chalk. An education grant from the European Commission enables each enrolled child to receive a distinctive school bag containing five exercise books, a pen and pencil. The bags proclaim in Somali: ‘Education for Every Child’.
Soon the Centre will also host evening classes in adult literacy and its meeting hall will be available for community gatherings and as a teachers’ resource centre. This is a vast improvement on the two-room school which existed in Hafun before the tsunami, with an enrolment of only 50 students.
Even while the Centre was under construction, some 340 Hafun children pre-enrolled for entry to the primary school: a seven-fold enrolment increase. The figure is now likely to top 500 as children from surrounding areas and from nomadic families seek to join. In order to accommodate everyone, the Centre will shortly introduce a shift system with morning and afternoon sessions. At that time, the number of teachers - six at present - will also increase. All will have benefited from UNICEF-supported teacher training conducted in Hafun.
A seven-member Community Education Committee (CEC) manages the Centre. Fatuma Mohamed Abdullahi is one of two females selected by elders in the community to serve on the committee. She could hardly contain her elation when the Centre finally opened. “We thank all those who supported this project. We never expected to have such a fancy school.”
Fatuma (whose three children are also enrolled at the school) makes it her job to tell others in the community about the benefits of education. “The advantages are countless when a person is educated. Ignorance is the enemy of life. In ignorance you cannot support yourself properly. I tell parents to bring all their children to school so that they will be able to support themselves.”
The new Hafun Community Learning Centre lies at the foot of a hill that last year provided the only refuge from the advancing tsunami. One year later, that hill provides a wonderful vantage point from which to see the result of a successful collaboration between the community and international partners to build back better - and bigger - than before. For the first time in many months the people of Hafun have something they can all celebrate: the opening of their ‘fancy’ new school.
Posted on Thursday 1st December at 16:05:25 Development Agencies Launch Distance Learning
The World Bank, the United Nations and the African Virtual University have teamed up to support distance learning using the Internet at six institutions in Somalia.
Professor Stanford Mukasa speaking via satellite link to his journalism students in Hergeisa University and the University of Puntland 3,000 kilometers away in Somalia, during the launch of the Somali online distance learning initiative in Nairobi.
The African Virtual University is developing learning material and making it available through interactive teaching to Somali students using the Internet. Additional material such as audio and videotapes are later shipped to the students by the U.N. Development Program (UNDP).
Mr. Peter Dzvimbo is head of the African Virtual University.
"We know that human resources are not there in Somalia, because it is a post conflict society and obviously the human resources are not there. This is why distance education and e-learning in particular lends itself to this kind of societies that are in distress," he explained.
Mr. Dzvimbo says the Somalia distance-learning program was established at the cost of $100 million, a sum he says is 10 times less than the amount required to set up conventional learning facilities in Somalia.
The initiative is a joint venture between the World Bank, the U.N. Development Program and the African Virtual University, and six learning institutions in Somalia.
These are the University of Hargeisa, Puntland State University, Mogadishu, The University of East Africa in Puntland, Amoud University in Somaliland and the Somali Institute of Management and Administration Development.
These institutions offer certificate courses in Journalism, Information Technology and Business Communications, and plan to offer full degree courses in the same fields, as well as teaching, next year.
Mr. Abdi Hayabe Elmi is president of the University of Hargeisa, the first university to start the distance-learning program. He says the program is going well.
"Very good. It is not smooth sailing. You have certain problems, but it is going well," he said. "The response is outstanding considering that their certificates are countersigned by universities in the states. That gives them an added value to their certificates."
Some of the foreign universities involved in this program include Indiana University of Pennsylvania and New Jersey Institute of Technology in the United States.
Somalia has been without a central government since the regime of the late Mohamed Sa'id Barre was overthrown in 1991. Vicious fighting between various political and clan factions ensued, sending into exile most educated Somalis and disrupting most education programs in the country.
Posted on Thursday 1st December at 16:04:01 Back
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