November 8, 2013 | Daily Monitoring Report.
Kenya hints further attacks on al Shabaab strongholds
08 Nov- Source: Radio Risaala/Hiiraan Online/Radio Bar-kulan- 108 words
The Kenyan army has warned Somali residents in Jubba and Gedo regions to stay clear of al Shabaab militant camps and strongholds. The Kenyan Military spokesman, Major Emmanuel Chirchir hinted the possibility of the Kenyan Army carrying out major offensive strikes against the militant group.
“We ask good people of Somalia in areas of Gedo, Mid Juba and Lower Juba to stay far from al Shabaab bases/camps/roadblocks,” Emmanuel Chirchir said on Twitter. He declined to give further details when contacted by Reuters. The Kenyan army has increased air strikes against al Shabaab since the armed group claimed responsibility of the Westgate Shopping Mall attacks in September.
Key Headlines
- Kenya hints further attacks on al Shabaab strongholds (Radio Risaala/Hiiraan Online)
- Clan clashes kill 15 people in Middle Shabelle (Somali Current Online/VOA Somali Service)
- Outcome of conference on Jubaland earns commendation(Radio Garowe)
- Meeting to improve security situation held in Baidoa(Radio Bar-kulan)
- Somaliland president receives Kenyan government and parliamentary delegation (Somaliland Informer)
- Somali health services revival ‘begins’(Africa Review)
- Uganda: Brig Ondoga two others denied bail(Daily Monitor)
- Experts say Somalia unity faces challenges(Xinhua/Global Times)
- Somali refugees in Yemeni limbo( IRIN)
SOMALI MEDIA
Kenya hints further attacks on al Shabaab strongholds
08 Nov- Source: Radio Risaala/Hiiraan Online/Radio Bar-kulan- 108 words
The Kenyan army has warned Somali residents in Jubba and Gedo regions to stay clear of al Shabaab militant camps and strongholds. The Kenyan Military spokesman, Major Emmanuel Chirchir hinted the possibility of the Kenyan Army carrying out major offensive strikes against the militant group.
“We ask good people of Somalia in areas of Gedo, Mid Juba and Lower Juba to stay far from al Shabaab bases/camps/roadblocks,” Emmanuel Chirchir said on Twitter. He declined to give further details when contacted by Reuters. The Kenyan army has increased air strikes against al Shabaab since the armed group claimed responsibility of the Westgate Shopping Mall attacks in September.
Outcome of conference on Jubaland earns commendation
08 Nov- Source: Radio Garowe/Dhanaan Online/Kismaayo News- 247 words
The outcome of Jubaland Reconciliation Conference has earned widespread commendation and many sides including AMISOM, regional allies, international community and the Somali public cordially welcomed the conference’s conclusion.
“I wish to re-affirm the readiness of the African Union and that of AMISOM in particular to supporting the implementation of the recommendations made during the conference,” the Special Representative of the Chairperson of the African Union Commission (SRCC) for Somalia, Ambassador Mahamat Saleh Annadif said in statement.
Continuing, Annadif hailed the strong commitment to peace and reconciliation by the Somali people and the way in which Jubaland delegates sorted out their differences during the discussions on the future of Jubaland regions.
Ethiopian Foreign Affairs Minister Dr. Tedros Adhanom on his side noted that the success of the negotiations and the implementation of the Addis Ababa Agreements heralded a new chapter in Ethiopia and Somalia’s history while he was speaking at a ceremony held for Jubaland Reconciliation Conference participants at Villa Somalia presidential compound in Mogadishu on Tuesday evening.
Adhanom stressed the need for peaceful coexistence to live in harmony together and through possible ways he said, Ethiopia remained committed to work for the consolidation of Somalia’s peace process.
IGAD-brokered bilateral talks between Somalia Federal Government and Jubaland Administration in Ethiopian capital of Addis Ababa in August paved the way Mogadishu Reconciliation Conference and a follow-up conference that will be held in Kismayo where rival militias fought each other over the control of the lucrative seaport.
Clan clashes kill 15 people in Middle Shabelle
08 Nov- Source: Somali Current Online/VOA Somali Service- 109 words
Fifteen people have been killed clashes between two clans over agricultural lands in outskirt of Jowhar, the provincial capital, on Wednesday. Residences in three locations were set on fire during two-days fighting between the clans that result the death of civilians, including children.
In an interview with Voice of America Somali Service, Middle Shabelle Governor, Abdi Jinow Ulusow, said that the clashes displaced number of civilians. Somali government troops were reported sent to the area to intervene the fighting clans.
The classes come in a week of disaster in the region, after the Shabelle region burst its banks, killing dozens of people and displaced tens of thousands of residents.
Meeting to improve security situation held in Baidoa
08 Nov- Source: Radio Bar-kulan- 132 words
Security officials in Baidoa town, the provincial capital of Bay region have held a meeting to address and discuss about the current security state in the town. The meeting was convened by the local administration officials and was attended by government representatives in the region as well as security experts.
Gen. Ibrahim Yarow, the military commander of Bay, Bakol and Gedo regions told Bar-kulan that the objective of the meeting was to tighten up the security amid the constant follow of politicians and community leaders to the town for the upcoming state formation conference.
He said that the security apparatus are currently taking coordinated efforts to ensure the maximum level of security is maintained during and after the conference. The commander also expressed his appreciation towards the local residents for their cooperation.
Somaliland president receives Kenyan government and parliamentary delegation
07 Nov- Source: Somaliland Informer/Somaliland Press/SLNTV- 109 words
Somaliland president Ahmed Mohamed Mohamoud Silanyo has received on Thursday the Kenyan government and parliament delegation that embarked on working visit to Somaliland on Wednesday. Somaliland Foreign Minister Mr. Mohamed Biihi Yoonis spoke to the media representative after the meeting ended and said that the two sides discussed to work closely together.
Mr. Biihi said that Somaliland strongly stands by the president of Kenya Mr. Uhuru Kenyatta against the unjust trial by the ICC against the head of state of Kenya. He added that they talked with the delegation on the issue of recognition and that the neighboring countries must address with immediacy about the pressing issue of recognition.
REGIONAL MEDIA
Somali health services revival ‘begins’
08 Nov- Source: Africa Review- 316 words
Somali Prime Minister Abdi Farah Shirdon has appealed to the country’s diaspora health professionals to ‘help transform Somalia’s health service’.
The Prime Minister was speaking Thursday when he opened in Mogadishu the first National Health Conference. The three-day conference, organised by the Ministry of Human Development and Public Services, has attracted over 400 health professionals from across Somalia and abroad.
According to statement released at the opening ceremony, the delegates will discuss how to transform Somalia’s health sector. “The participants will produce recommendations and operational guidelines on strengthening the Somali health system, improving health service delivery and health financing and regulation,” said the statement.
Uganda: Brig Ondoga, two others denied bail
06 Nov- Source: Daily Monitor- 235 words
Former commander of the Ugandan contingent in Somalia Michael Ondoga and two other soldiers were last evening remanded to Makindye Military Barracks over alleged failure to perform their duties and theft of food meant for soldiers in Somalia.
Brig Ondoga, Lt Col Sam Kirya, a former information officer at the mission, and former logistics officer, Capt Joy Atugonza, appeared before the Makindye-based General Court Martial chaired by Brig Moses Ddiba Ssentongo to apply for bail.
However, their application was not heard because it was filed yesterday, just hours before the court hearing, to which prosecution said “it was late.”
Brig Ssentongo further remanded the trio until November 12 and directed prosecution to respond to the applications in time.
Prosecution alleges that in October, Brig Ondoga, while aware of an impending advance operation from Afgooye-Baidoa which required 1,500 troops, he committed 1,000 troops which resulted into loss of lives.
INTERNATIONAL MEDIA
Experts say Somalia unity faces challenges
08 Nov- Source: Xinhua/Global Times-757 Words
Somalia has been without a powerful national government for the past two decades. While the northern part of the horn of Africa nation has been relatively peaceful, the southern and central regions have been plagued by instability. Experts on Thursday said the social, economic and political exclusion are the underlying cause of the instability.
Conflict Early Warning Early Response Unit (CEWERU) Somalia Country Director Osman Moallim told Xinhua in Nairobi that clan identity has been used to intensify the differences.
“It has reached a level where lasting peace remains a mirage despite the numerous interventions by the international community, ” Moallim said during the release of the Somalia’s Conflict Mapping and Analysis Report of the country’s southern regions.
The report is a publication of CEWERU. The Inter Governmental Authority on Development (IGAD) launched the Conflict Early Warning and Response Mechanism (CEWARN) in 2002.
The mechanism is mandated to prevent conflicts in the Horn of Africa region. CEWARN collaborates with the CEWERU in each of the IGAD partner states. IGAD member states include Kenya, Ethiopia, Djibouti, Somalia, Uganda, Sudan and Eritrea
Somali refugees in Yemeni limbo
07 Nov- Source: IRIN-1452 Words
It is eight years since Esmahan Abdaqadir Ali left the Somali capital Mogadishu for a new life in Saudi Arabia, and things have not quite turned out as planned. For a start, she never reached her destination. She was granted refugee status automatically upon arriving by boat in Yemen. Then she married, became pregnant and joined the ranks of Yemen’s semi-permanent Somali refugee community, estimated to number around 232,000 according to the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR).
“We’ve been through so much – we don’t think any longer about tomorrow – we are just thinking of how to live from one day to the next,” she told IRIN at a kindergarten in the southern city of Aden.
As the mother of five young children, and now abandoned by her husband, she lives through begging – a common means of survival for Somalis, even those who have spent decades in what is the region’s poorest country. Yemen’s largest refugee community faces a dilemma; most Somalis, community leaders in the southern city of Aden say, would return home if given the chance.
“Somali new arrivals have been down – as well as Ethiopians now. The situation in Somalia is getting better, and they know their chances of crossing into Saudi Arabia are much lower,” Saleh Hassan from the Danish Refugee Council (DRC) told IRIN.
SOCIAL MEDIA
CULTURE / OPINION / EDITORIAL / ANALYSIS / BLOGS/ DISCUSSION BOARDS
“Ferguson is entirely unsentimental about his extended experience in the international Somali milieu. He doesn’t falsely represent the positives in a country and society where clearly something has gone badly wrong. As for being ‘The Most Dangerous Place on Earth’, this really depends in which part of it you are standing – thinking of Somalia as much more than the cartographic expression of the failed post-colonial state is clearly something of a pointless exercise and we need to address each part of it on its own terms.”
Somalia: the world’s most dangerous place? – Good book, bad title – Review
07 Nov- Source: African Arguments-1272 Words
James Ferguson’s ‘The World’s Most Dangerous Place: inside the outlaw state of Somalia’ is a good book with a bad title – lending itself too much to the kind of one dimensional Dantean portrayal of the country which the author has most definitely not produced. However, I can forgive the publisher for this attempt to reach a wider audience than the usual band of analysts, aid workers and academics who hoover-up Somali-focused fare.
This is also easily the most enjoyable non-fiction book on Somalia I have come across. In fact, it may be the only read-it-for-pleasure book on Somalia I know of. The country is, afterall, a place that generally spawns academic tomes which attempt to explain the complexity of state collapse eg Stig Hansen’s ‘al Shabaab in Somalia’ or revisionist histories which pointedly try to ‘problematise’ headline views of the country showing it as nothing more than a haven for warlords, pirates and al Qaeda eg Mary Harper’s ‘Getting Somalia Wrong’.
Ferguson, through exhaustive research and a flair for a certain sharp-eyed journalistic reportage, demonstrates that whilst warlords, pirates and terrorists all inhabit the country, they are part of a much bigger (and more creative) economy of warfare that has developed over the last 20 years.
Top tweets
@amisomsomalia AMISOM signs MOU with #Somalicontractors to launch a quick impact project through #AMISOMTrust Fund http://bit.ly/HIn8yq
@Marie_O_R Shabab: hit & run tactics, asymmetric warfare says #Somali Amb. to UN. Wants more support to Somali police to disrupt intel networks #ipinst
@HizmetMovement #Somali Ambassador to Ankara calls Turkish relief #aid efforts as heroic, praises #Turkish Schools in his country: http://bit.ly/1aaiJxx
@WaaberiProject A short film on the #Somali Health System to mark the opening of the National Health Conference in Mogadishu… http://fb.me/19eg43uwb
@DrTedros Mogadishu Airport. #Mogadishu isn’t what some would like us 2 believe. It’s changing 4 good. I invite u 2 pay a visit pic.twitter.com/k26AgARH5y
Image of the day
Employees at Radio Mogadishu demonstrate to the the Minister of Information, Abdullahi Elmoge Hirsi, the digitilization process of their records November 7 in Mogadishu, Somalia.