18 Aug 2011 – Daily Monitoring Report
Key Headlines:
- Somali president Sheikh Sharif returns home
- TFG calls for al Shabaab militia to take advantage of the amnesty
- Health workers kidnapped in Daynile hospital Mogadishu
- FAO calls East Africa aid meeting for Thursday
- Al Shabaab leader flee Hudur town Bakol region
- UN calls for ‘scaled-up’ Somalia aid effort
- Nyeko appointed AMISOM Police deputy
PRESS STATEMENT
Press Statement of the African Union Peace and Security Council on the situation in Somalia
16 Aug – Source: AU – 417 words
The Peace and Security Council of the African Union (AU), at its 289th meeting held on 16 August 2011, was briefed on the situation in Somalia by the Commissioner for Peace and Security and the Special Representative of the Chairperson of the Commission for Somalia.
Council also followed communications by the Special Representative of the United Nations for Somalia and the IGAD Facilitator for Somalia Peace and National Reconciliation. Council welcomed the recent developments in Somalia, in particular the extension of Transitional Federal Government (TFG) and AMISOM forces’ control over areas formerly occupied by Al‐Shabaab in Mogadishu. Council commended the TFG and AMISOM forces for their courage and commitment in dealing with Al‐Shabaab, ultimately forcing it to pull out of Mogadishu.
Council encouraged the TFG and AMISOM forces to pursue their efforts, and called on the TFG to take all necessary steps for the expeditious implementation of the pending transitional tasks, in pursuance of both the Djibouti Agreement of 19 August 2008 and the Kampala Accord of 9 June 2011, and the deepening of the national reconciliation process. Council called for continued support to the Transitional Federal Institutions (TFIs) to enable them to effectively discharge their responsibilities.
Council called on AU member States and partners to provide the requisite support to AMISOM to enable it to reach its UN authorized strength of 12,000 troops and effectively implement its mandate with a view to consolidating the important gains made so far. In this respect, Council welcomed the initiative by the Commission to convene, in Addis Ababa, on 17 and 18 August 2011, a consultative workshop bringing together all stakeholders to identify the concrete steps that need to be taken in the coming months in order to avail AMISOM a support commensurate with the challenges at hand.
Council reiterated its concern at the prevailing drought and famine in Somalia and appealed to member States, partner countries and institutions alike, to contribute to the relief efforts in Somalia and to seize the opportunity of the Pledging Conference scheduled to take place in Addis Ababa, on 25 August 2011, to provide further support for the humanitarian efforts in Somalia.
Council agreed to meet again early in September to review the situation in Somalia on the basis of the report that will be submitted by the Chairperson of the Commission, ahead of the Security Council meeting on Somalia in the context of resolution 1964 (2010), which authorized the AU to maintain the deployment of AMISOM until 30 September 2011.
http://www.amisom-au.org/read-
SOMALI MEDIA
Somali president Sheikh Sharif returns home
18 Aug – Source: Mareeg Online, Radio Mogadishu and Bar-Kulan – 68 words
TFG president Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed returned home back leading a large Turkish delegation after attending an Islamic conference in Turkey. 350 million dollars were collected during the Islamic conference in Istanbul, Turkey for the drought affected people of Somalia as officials from the OIC and reports said.
http://www.mareeg.com/fidsan.
TFG calls for al Shabaab militia to take advantage of the amnesty
17 Aug – Source: Radio Shabelle – 61 words
Speaking at a meeting in Mogadishu, the Chairman of the National Reconciliation Committee, Ismail mo`alim Muse, called for al Shabaab fighters to take advantage of the amnesty extended to them by the Somali government and surrender their guns. Mr. Ismail stated that this is a one time opportunity and that the Somali government will not reinstate an amnesty to al Shabaab again.
Health workers kidnapped in Daynile hospital, Mogadishu
18 Aug – Source: Radio Bar-Kulan – 74 words
Al Shabaab militia group yesterday afternoon kidnapped three health workers from Daynile hospital in Mogadishu. The three were said to be the hospital’s logistic officer, a nurse and their driver. The whereabouts of the kidnapped health workers are not yet known, as their kidnappers have not yet commented on their plight. Al Shabaab has been occupying Daynile for the last couple of years, before they were forced to retreat from the area earlier this month.
Al Shabaab force hoteliers to provide Iftar and fast-closing meals for militants
17 Aug – Source: Radio Bar-Kulan – 138 words
Al Shabaab has ordered each hotelier in Afmadow town of Lower Jubba to provide fast-breaking and closing meals for ten of their militant men. Militant leaders in the area who had a meeting with the hoteliers told them to prepare meals for their militias, threatening to punish defiant hoteliers. Al Shabaab’s second in command in the town, Shueib Adan Ali, compelled the hoteliers to support the militant group operating in the area. One of the hoteliers who sought anonymity for security concern told Bar-kulan that they cannot afford to feed the militia men every night, citing the poor sales return of their businesses. He hinted at the possibility of shutting down his hotel since he cannot meet al Shabaab’s demand. Local hoteliers suspect the already cash-strapped militia group is trying to feed its fighters as they face both a financial and leadership crisis.
FAO calls East Africa aid meeting for Thursday
18 Aug – Source: Bartamaha – 482 words
The UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization will hold its latest session on the humanitarian food crisis in the Horn of Africa on Thursday in Rome, Italy. “Nowhere are high food prices, poverty and instability combining to produce tragic suffering more than in the Horn of Africa,” World Bank President Robert Zoellick noted Monday.
The East African region is in the throes of prolonged drought. This drought is particularly tough in conflict areas experiencing large refugee flows. The drought leads to famine and a humanitarian disaster impacting an estimated 12 million people. This situation has been made worst by the staggeringly high food prices dominating many commodity markets since 2008.
“The (FAO) meeting will take stock of the evolving situation, needs and shortfalls in the crisis and identify concrete programs, projects and other actions by governments in the Horn of Africa and their humanitarian and development partners that will address both immediate requirements and the underlying causes of the crisis,” the FAO said in a statement announcing the meeting.
In its latest global price report released August 9 in Rome, FAO found international prices for wheat were down in July for the third straight month, but prices for rice were up. Corn prices were off slightly. “In Eastern Africa, cereal prices are at generally high levels, with new peaks reached in several countries. Prices of milk are at record or very high levels in most countries of the region,” the FAO specialists reported in their latest monthly price monitor report.
http://www.bartamaha.com/?p=
Al Shabaab leader flee Hudur town, Bakol region
18 Aug – Source: Radio Bar-Kulan – 139 words
Reports from Hudur town in Bakol region say one of the al Shabaab militant leader and his group of militants loyal to him has fled the town. Al Shabaab’s district security man, Ibrahim Gutale left Xudur town after a row erupted between him and the most senior al Shabaab member in the district, Adan Abdirahman Yare, over administration of the town. Gutale and his team are said to have fled to Hiiraan’s regional headquarter, Beledweyne, where he hails from. In recent months, disagreements among the militia leaders in the district have crippled militia group in the area. This is the second al Shabaab leader fleeing his area of jurisdictions over recurring rifts between the militia leaders in the region. On Wednesday another militant leader fled Baidoa to his hometown of Hudur over a similar rift with his militant boss in the region.
IDPs in Ufurow receive financial aid
17 Aug – Source: Radio Bar-Kulan – 97 words
A hundred and twenty families facing starvation in Ufurow district of Bay region have received $ 3,000 financial aid from diaspora people in Canada who have roots in the region. Mohamed Ali Barre, one member of the local committee distributing the money to the needy people in the area said each household has received 200,000 Somali shillings. He said the amount is a drop in the ocean compared to the needs of the IDPs. Some of the beneficiaries of the aid praised the well-wishers who donated aid packages during this time of difficulties in the region.
REGIONAL MEDIA
UN calls for ‘scaled-up’ Somalia aid effort
18 Aug – Source: Al Jazeera – 541 words
The United Nations’ Humanitarian Chief says aid efforts in drought-stricken Somalia and the Horn of Africa need to be scaled up to save the lives of millions facing starvation. “There are still many lives that need to be saved in the Horn of Africa,” Valerie Amos, the UN’s Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs, told a news conference in New York on Wednesday. Amos, who had just returned from a three-day visit to Kenya and Somalia, called for “more food and nutritional supplies, water, sanitation and hygiene equipment, and medical care to those who are in desperate need.”
“We’re faced with a still spreading famine in Somalia and with such a scale of suffering that every effort needs to be made and sustained in the months ahead.” About 3.2 million people are on the brink of starvation in Somalia, where the UN has formally declared a state of famine in five regions in the southern and central parts.
Also there are 12.4 million others across the wider region encompassing Kenya, Djibouti and Ethiopia, who are in need of food and humanitarian assistance owing to the effects of the worst drought in decades. Amos said the aid operation by the UN and its partners was accelerating with hot meals given daily to almost 100,000 people, clean water provided to half a million people, and an emergency measles vaccination campaign targeting 88,000 children and 46,000 women under way.
“Nonetheless, it is clear that even in Mogadishu the famine has already claimed the lives of tens of thousands of people and it will kill many more if we do not further scale up our efforts,” she said.
http://english.aljazeera.net/
Nyeko appointed AMISOM Police deputy
17 Aug – Source: Daily Monitor – 213 words
A Uganda senior police officer, Oyo Benson Nyeko, has been appointed as the deputy of the African Union Mission in the Somalia Police Component replacing the Sierra Leonean Police officer Oliver Somasa.
Mr. Nyeko, who has been deputy director in charge of Human Resource and Management of the Uganda Police Force, left for AMISOM over the weekend. However, the acting director of Interpol and Peace Support, Mr. David Magara couldn’t confirm the new redeployment in a telephone interview with Daily Monitor Tuesday evening.
“I am not aware of those developments. Mr. Nyeko is a senior officer so his deployment may have been approved by the Inspector General of Police [Maj. Gen. Kale Kayihura],” Mr. Magara said Tuesday.
The AMISOM Police train and monitor Somali Police Force (SPF) to transform it into an effective organization meeting international standards. Uganda, Burundi, Ghana, Nigeria and Sierra Leone are the only countries that offered officers in Somalia.
Mr. Nyeko has served in several United Nations Peacekeeping missions around the continent. He is the second Ugandan police officer in the leadership team after Dr. Steven Kasiima. Uganda trains hundreds of Somali officers in its different police training schools in the country. Two years ago, Uganda Police sent 10 senior police officers to Nairobi, Kenya to train senior Somali police officers.
http://www.monitor.co.ug/News/
INTERNATIONAL MEDIA
Somali famine needs urgent response: Britain
18 Aug – Source: AFP, Yahoo News, and Capital FM – 355 words
The death toll in famine-hit Somalia will escalate unless urgent action is taken, the first British minister to visit war-torn Mogadishu in over 18 years said on Wednesday. “The stark fact is that in southern Somalia the situation is deteriorating by the day,” Andrew Mitchell, Britain’s international development secretary, said in Nairobi following a visit to Mogadishu.
Up to 400,000 children are at risk of death through starvation if urgent action is not taken now, he added, announcing a $41 million (29 million euro) funding boost. Without an “urgent response” the crisis could become as bad as Somalia’s 1991-2 famine, when over 200,000 people lost their lives, warned Mitchell, who visited feeding centers and camps for those fleeing extreme drought. “This is a race against time,” he warned. Britain’s funding boost — to be channeled through the UN children’s agency — includes two months supplementary rations for up to 192,000 people, and measles vaccinations for at least 800,000 children.
It will also provide $4 million for agricultural projects, including the vaccination of livestock. Over 12 million people in parts of Djibouti, Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia and Uganda are in danger of starvation in the wake of the region’s worst drought in decades.
http://uk.news.yahoo.com/
Somali soldier who killed al-Qaeda leader is injured in retaliatory attack
17 Aug – Source: Bloomberg – 675 words
The commander of the Somali forces that killed al-Qaeda’s suspected leader in East Africa and one of the FBI’s most-wanted men said he was injured in a retaliatory attack. Fazul Abdullah Mohamed, suspected of being involved in 1998 attacks on U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, was shot and killed in June in Mogadishu, Somalia’s capital. Captain Hassan Mohamed Abukar, who was at the checkpoint where Fazul was killed, said he’s received death threats and was wounded earlier this month in an attack by al-Qaeda-linked al Shabaab fighters.
Al Shabaab has waged a four-year insurgency against the Western-backed government of President Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed. The rebels withdrew from Mogadishu on Aug. 6 after suffering a series of military defeats. Abukar was shot by a group of al Shabaab fighters who recognized him while they were fleeing Mogadishu’s central Bakara Market.
“We were in the middle of an operation to secure Bakara Market on the day when we cleared the terrorist elements out of Mogadishu,” Abukar said in an interview on Aug. 14 from his bed at Mogadishu’s Medina Hospital. “A group of al Shabaab militants suddenly appeared at a nearby corner and realized that I was the commander who killed their leader Fazul. They opened fire and a bullet struck me behind my right knee.”
Egyptian trauma surgeon on Somali front line epitomizes UN humanitarian role
17 Aug – Source: UN News Centre – 653 words
Omar Saleh was leading a peaceful and comfortable life as a trauma surgeon and university lecturer in Egypt when the call came from the United Nations health agency: surgeons urgently needed in war-torn Somalia. He didn’t have to think twice.
“I should be where I’m needed,” he said today as the UN prepared to mark World Humanitarian Day on Friday. “And this is where I’m needed. I’m a trauma surgeon. This is a conflict. Trauma is everywhere. I must be there,” he told the UN News Centre by telephone.
Dr. Saleh, 41, married and a father of two, who studied at the universities of Cairo and Ismailiya and at the Royal College of Surgeons in London, and now operates in Somalia under the auspices of the UN World Health Organization, is just one of the tens of thousands of humanitarian workers whose selfless efforts are being celebrated by the annual Day.
When he was a student he never imagined he would be operating in a crisis-torn country such as Somalia where 20 years of brutal inter-clan fighting without a functioning central government have killed and wounded scores of thousands, but since 2007 he has been wielding his potentially life-saving scalpel not only in Mogadishu, the capital, but in other violence-wracked regions of south and central Somalia, including Baidoa.
It was in Baidoa that he faced one of his worst days. There had been ferocious fighting and bomb explosions and 24 gravely wounded people had been brought in to the ‘hospital,’ a very basic institution far removed from what is usually understood by the term. Of these, Dr. Saleh and another surgeon he was training managed to save just two.
http://www.un.org/apps/news/
Sen. Brown calls on administration to ramp up assistance to Somalia
17 Aug – Source: the state column – 186 words
With more than three million people in Somalia facing extreme food shortages and widespread famine, U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH) urged the Administration to ramp up aid to Somalia. In a letter sent today, Brown, a member of the powerful State and Foreign Operations Appropriations Subcommittee, called on U.S. Sec. of State Hillary Clinton to increase humanitarian aid and refugee assistance.
“The Somali people are suffering under not only an unstable government, but also extreme famine and drought,” Brown said. “Although a global response is necessary, the U.S. must lead the way in providing assistance to the people of Somalia while ensuring the access and safety of aid workers.”
The United Nations has declared famine in five regions of Somalia and the senators noted this famine comes following decades of political dysfunction, recurrent food shortages, and more recently, terror by al-Shabaab that has harassed, endangered, and expelled humanitarian groups. The U.S. has led the emergency response to the immediate crisis, including the State Department’s recent announcement of additional humanitarian assistance to Somalia and the White House’s announcement of additional assistance for the greater Horn of Africa.
Equatorial Guinea donates 2 million euros to Somalia famine victims
17 Aug – Source: Herald Online – 338 words
Equatorial Guinean President Obiang Nguema Mbasogo donated two million euros to aid victims of the famine in Somalia. President Obiang also encouraged his fellow citizens to contribute to the relief effort, and the government has established a system for citizens to make contributions at local banks.
“This aid is a humanitarian donation to help the severe famine affecting the lives of over eleven million people in Somalia,” President Obiang said on Wednesday. He called on individuals in the private and public sectors of his country to “help the brothers, sisters, mothers and children of Somalia.”
National media reported that citizens’ donations collected in Equatorial Guinea will be deposited in banks in the capital city of Malabo. The African Union members, led by Chairman Obiang Nguema Mbasogo, will meet at an international conference to be held in Addis Ababa on August 25th to review progress on aid to Somalia.
While addressing the African Union delegations at the African Union Summit, held in Malabo last month, President Obiang stressed the need for unity and solidarity among African nations. He told member countries that even though they are “often exposed to pressures created by external nations,” they must work together to strengthen the resolve and influence of the union.
Following Equatorial Guinea’s policy of promoting unity and solidarity, the country donated $500,000 to Japan after the Fukushima nuclear disaster. Equatorial Guinea’s effort toward a unified and prosperous nation is one of the development goals established by President Obiang in his ambitious Horizon 2020 program.
The Republic of Equatorial Guinea (Republica de Guinea Ecuatorial) is the only Spanishspeaking country in Africa, and one of the smallest nations on the continent. In the late-1990s, American companies helped discover the country’s oil and natural gas resources, which only within the last five years began contributing to the global energy supply. Equatorial Guinea is now working to serve as a pillar of stability and security in its region of West Central Africa. The country will host the 2011 Summit of the African Union.
http://www.heraldonline.com/