14 Jul 2011 – Daily Monitoring Report
Key Headlines:
- TFG trying to assist drought victims in Mogadishu
- Children die of hunger starvation in Mogadishu
- Cost of living high in Dhobley Lower Juba region
- AU’s Rawlings to visit Somalia for assessing the drought situation
- Somalia government denies existence of CIA base in Mogadishu
SOMALI MEDIA
Children die of hunger, starvation in Mogadishu
14 Jul – Source: Radio Mogadishu, Shabelle – 74 words
At least two children are reported to have died due hunger and starvation in a refugee camp in Darkenley district, Mogadishu, official said. The district commissioner of Darkenley district, Mo’allim Hilowle told Radio Mogadishu this morning the two children who died recently arrived in Mogadishu. He added that the situation for refugees is worsening and urged assistance is needed.
Cost of living high in Dhobley, Lower Juba region
14 Jul – Source: BBC Somali Service – 82 words
Reports from the Somali border town of Dhobley say that the cost of living there has skyrocketed following acute food shortages. Dhobley is a temporary home to thousands of Somalis trying to reach Dadaab refugee camp in neighboring Kenya.
PDP decries Puntland’s willingness to host the Somalia’s consultative meeting
14 Jul – Source: Shabelle – 127 words
The Peace and Democracy Party on Thursday strongly decried the willingness of the semiautonomous state of Puntland to host Somalia’s consultative meeting in Garowe. In an exclusive interview with Shabelle Media Network, the chairman of peace and democracy party Abdullahi Sheikh Hassan said the aim of that meeting has already been achieved. Mr. Hassan said Somali people do not settle equally in Garowe and therefore the town cannot host such a meeting. The Chairman of the Independent Political Party said holding the forthcoming Somalia’s consultative meeting in Mogadishu is very welcome.
http://www.shabelle.net/
TFG trying to assist drought victims in Mogadishu
14 Jul – Source: BBC Somali Service – 62 words
The prime minister, Abdiweli Muhammad Ali has said that the government is doing what it can to assist drought victims in the capital, Mogadishu. The worst affected areas are the regions of Bay, Bakol and Gedo, he said. He added that the government had formed a ministerial committee to coordinate humanitarian efforts in the country.
Government asks for help to destroy al Shabaab, Al Qaeda
14 Jul – Source: Shabelle – 91 words
The transitional federal government of Somalia has asked the international community to for assistance in its combat efforts to destroy al Shabaab and al Qaeda. Speaking to reporters in the capital, the Deputy Minister of Interior and Home Security, Ibrahim Isaq Yarow said the government is committed to demolishing al Shabaab. He added that Somalis need to unite in the fight against al Shabaab.
http://shabelle.net/article.
REGIONAL MEDIA
AU’s Rawlings to visit Somalia for assessing the drought situation
14 Jul – Source: Al Shahid – 254 words
Former Ghanaian president Jerry Rawlings, the AU’s special envoy, will soon go to Somalia to assess the situation. He will present his recommendations to the AU Commission. African Union spokesman El-Ghassim Wane said the AU is stepping up security to ensure that “much-needed” humanitarian assistance gets to Somalis hit by drought and violence.
“We are securing both the seaport and the airport, thus making it possible to bring in the much needed humanitarian supplies. We are also providing limited humanitarian assistance in terms of healthcare and provision of water to local communities.” said Wane. He said the continental body has called on its member countries, as well as the rest of the international community, to help address the drought.
“The AU has requested former president Jerry Rawlings to intensify his efforts aimed at mobilizing further assistance from within the continent,” said Wane. “Mr. Rawlings is expected to travel to Somalia [soon]…to see how best the AU could be of help to the Somali people at this very difficult time.”
http://english.alshahid.net/
WFP poised to return to Somalia
13 Jul – Source: African Press Agency, Afrique Avenir – 285 words
The World Food Programme (WFP) said on Wednesday that it is considering returning to Somalia to continue its humanitarian operations there. WFP and other UN agencies left Somalia last year after the Islamist militant group, Al Shabaab imposed a ban on foreign aid organizations not to operate in Somalia.
However, Al Shabaab said last week that it has lifted its ban in order to allow aid agencies continue their operations. “WFP withdrew from areas under Al Shabaab control in southern Somalia at the beginning of 2010 because of threats to the lives of our staff and the imposition of unacceptable operating conditions, including the imposition of informal taxes, and a demand that no female staff work for us there,” said WFP.
Drought and conflict are threatening lives in southern Somalia and forcing refugees to stream across the border into Ethiopia and Kenya. “With needs so great in southern Somalia, WFP is working with the United Nations Humanitarian Coordinator to explore every possibility to return – if conditions allow, and if the necessary security clearance from the United Nations is granted. WFP will also consult with donor governments to ensure that they are comfortable with the complexities and risk associated with any resumption of humanitarian operations,” said WFP.
http://www.afriqueavenir.org/
Somalia government denies existence of CIA base in Mogadishu
14 Jul – Source: Al Shahid – 227 words
The Transitional Federal Government of Somalia denied the existence of CIA run detention centre in Mogadishu. Acting Assistant Minister of Foreign Affairs Ibrahim Isaac Yarow told VOA Somali service the report released by The Nation magazine was a bogus and far from the reality one. “The report is a baseless propaganda, Somalia has good relationship with the world governments because we are a member of the UN, but there is no need for the CIA to operate in Somalia,” said the assistant minister.
Yarow said that the TFG is aware of “every corner” that it controls in the war torn Mogadishu and foreign forces can’t act in those areas without the TFG’s knowledge. In an article for The Nation yesterday, Jeremy Scahill reported that the CIA has set up two secret facilities in Mogadishu as part of America’s fight against the Al Qaeda-affiliated militant group A al Shabaab: a fortified compound near the capital’s airport for training Somali intelligence agents in counterterrorism and a prison in the basement of Somalia’s National Security Agency headquarters for detaining suspected Al Shabaab members.
The news comes only a couple weeks after The New York Times reported that the U.S. was expanding its covert drone program against militants from Yemen to Somalia, and after American boots hit the ground in the country-albeit briefly-to collect the bodies of insurgents killed in drone strikes.
http://english.alshahid.net/
INTERNATIONAL MEDIA
WFP mulls return to Somalia’s rebel-held areas as drought worsens
14 Jul – Source: Bernama – 413 words
The United Nations World Food Programmer (WFP) is mulling a return to Somalia’s rebel-held regions to help residents facing hunger as a result of a harsh drought which has prompted the insurgents to appeal for aid.
Around three million Somalis — about a third of the country’s entire population — are in need of humanitarian aid and last week the al Qaeda-inspired al-Shabaab rebels said they would allow foreign aid groups to operate in the regions they console, two years after expelling them. Thousands of Somalis have fled into neighboring Kenya and Uganda in the wake of the Horn of Africa’s worst drought in decades which has left millions of people facing starvation.
“With needs so great in southern Somalia, the WFP is working with the United Nations Humanitarian Coordinator to explore every possibility to return if conditions allow and if the necessary security clearance from the United Nations is granted,” the WFP said in a statement received here Wednesday.
Somalis fleeing violence and hunger have flocked at the world’s largest refugee settlement in the eastern part of Kenya, an overcrowded camp that is hosting 380,000 refugees, more than four times its initial planned capacity. Kenya says the influx of refugees into the Dadaab refugee centre has degenerated into a humanitarian crisis. Immigration Minister Otieno Kajwang Wednesday acknowledged that about 2,000 refugees were reporting at the center each day, stretching facilities further.
http://www.bernama.com.my/
Pirates disrupting climate change research
14 Jul – Source: ABC – 600 words
Piracy in the Indian Ocean is hampering the efforts of climate change researchers to the point where they have had to call in the Australian Navy. Pirate activity off the coast of Somalia has increased dramatically over recent years, so much so that a quarter of the Indian Ocean is now considered a “no-go” area. While it is a major problem for commercial shipping, it is also frustrating for scientists. Oceanographers and meteorologists say that being locked out of the region has put a hole in their data.
Since January 2010, there have been about 280 reported incidents of piracy off the coast of Somalia and as the activity escalates, the exclusion zone for shipping expands. The CSIRO’s Ann Thresher says a quarter of the Indian Ocean is currently off limits. “Pirates are a big problem at the moment for anybody who needs to make any sort of observations in the area of the north-west Indian Ocean,” she said.
“They’re ranging so far up from Somalia that we’re having difficulties getting instruments into that area so it’s a good quarter of the Indian Ocean [that] is a no-go area. Dr Thresher says research vessels have been pursued by pirates on a number of occasions. “Yes there have been research vessels in that area that had to make a quick retreat – in one case they actually hired an armed escort for the research vessel. That gets very expensive and we just don’t put scientists at risk like that,” she said.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/
Piracy attacks bigger, bolder, more violent-report
14 Jul – Source: Reuters – 341 words
Piracy attacks on the world’s shipping rose by a third in the first half of this year and became increasingly violent, with pirates using machineguns, grenade launchers and other weapons, a maritime watchdog said on Thursday. Despite the increase of such attacks off Somalia in the Horn of Africa, where piracy is rampant, and other areas, successful hijackings were down, in large part due to massive patrolling by naval fleets, the International Maritime Bureau said.
“In the last six months, Somali pirates attacked more vessels than ever before and they’re taking higher risks,” IMB director Pottengal Mukundan said in a statement. “This June, for the first time, pirates fired on ships in rough seas in the Indian Ocean during the monsoon season. In the past, they would have stayed away in such difficult conditions. Masters should remain vigilant.”
Attacks on oil and chemical tankers rose by 36 percent and were increasingly violent, involving automatic weapons and rocket propelled grenade launchers. Somali pirates were going out in worse conditions than before, including the monsoon season, the IMB said in its latest Piracy and Armed Robbery against Ships report. Worldwide attacks rose to 266 in the first six months of 2011 compared with 196 in the same period last year.
More than 60 percent were by Somali pirates, the majority of which were in the Arabian Sea, but bigger “mother ships” equipped with more sophisticated equipment have allowed them to stay at sea longer and strike farther than they were able to do in the past.
http://www.reuters.com/