May 12, 2015 | Morning Headlines.

Main Story

Immigration Department Officer Shot In Mogadishu By Unknown Gunmen

11 May – Source: Goobjoog News – 101 Words

Unidentified assailants shot and wounded Abdullahi Mohamed Osoble, an immigration department officer, in a drive-by shooting in Mogadishu’s Hodan district. Eyewitnesses confirmed to Goobjoog News that the incident occurred in the Siigaale suburb where the perpetrators fled the scene before the police arrived in the area. Sources close to victim said that the officer sustained injuries and was rushed to Medina Hospital, where he is currently receiving treatment. No group has claimed the responsibility for the attack, but Al-Shabab has recently carried out similar pre-planned attacks on government institutions and government officials.

Key Headlines

Immigration Department Officer Shot In Mogadishu By Unknown Gunmen (Goobjoog News)
Presidential Term Extension Leads To Mass Protest In Somaliland (Garowe Online)
Somali National Army Captures Buurwein Locality (Goobjoog News)
Somali Journalists Protest AMISOM Sniffer Dogs (Radio Dalsan)
Somalia President Calls On Arab Countries To Invest In Somalia (Somali Current)
UN Highlights Somalia’s Humanitarian Challenges (Radio Danan)
Somali President Committed To More Inclusive Vote In 2016 (Reuters/Yahoo News)
Somaliland: Risking Torture For A Better Life Abroad (Al-Jazeera)
Segregation and Security: Life Inside MIA (The Times)
No Timetable For Refugees’ Return To Unstable Somalia UN Says (Daily Nation)

NATIONAL MEDIA

Presidential Term Extension Leads To Mass Protest In Somaliland

11 May – Source: Garowe Online -286 Words

A few hours after Somaliland’s House of Elders [Guurti] extended term in office for President Ahmed Mohamed Mohamud Siilaanyo by a year and ten months, hundreds took to the streets to demonstrate against fresh term extension on Monday, Garowe Online reports. Opposition leader Abdirahman Mohamed Abdullahi Irro announced state-wide protests against the decision to extend term for President Siilaanyo, Vice President Abdirahman Saylici, Parliament and the House of Elders by a 30-member committee within the region’s forum for traditional affairs. In the second largest city, Burao Wadani party supporters poured into the streets, setting tires alight and chanting slogans at protest of the term extension.

Fears of violent protests are also looming in the capital Hargeisa and Erigabo where police forces have arrested opposition figures. The banner-waving crowds were hurling stones at security forces as they tried to break up anti-government marches in Togdher regional capital of Burao, witnesses told Garowe Online. Wadani opposition party leader Irro strongly opposed the term extension for ruling Kulmiye party, calling it ‘illegal’. House of Elders set 27 April 2017 for the end of President Siilaanyo’s term in office, with parliamentary and general elections slated a month ahead. On May 3, Chairman of traditional forum Saleban Mohamud Adan (Saleban Gaal) unveiled that elders will hold intense discussions on presidential term extension with the main opposition parties, Justice and Welfare party and Wadani. Buroa is among election strongholds of Parliament speaker and Wadani party leader Abdirahman Irro, a frontrunner for the top political job in a region relatively known for democratic credentials. Somaliland, located in northwestern Somalia declared its independence from the rest of the country as de facto sovereign state in 1991 but it has not been recognized internationally yet.

Somali National Army Captures Buurwein Locality

11 May – Source: Goobjoog News -180 Words

Reports from Hiraan region state that Somali National Army backed by Djibouti contingent under African peacekeeping mission in Somalia (AMISOM) took over the control of Buurweyn which lies 28 km South of Bulla-Burte town. The commander of section 10 of Somali National Army in Hiraan region, Osman Abdi Mumin who gave exclusive interview to Goobjoog News said that SNA soldiers seized Buurwein locality after they carried out massive operation to liberate the area.“After brief gun battle our soldiers managed to dislodge Al-Shabab from the area” he said.

He added that they captured three suspected Al-Shabaab fighters during the operation. Al-shabaab did not comment on the claims made by SNA commander and whether some of their fighters fell into the hands of the government forces. On 7th of this month, Somali government forces engaged in gun battle with Shabaab fighters in Abooray locality. Somali National Army together with African Union peacekeeping troops have pushed out Al-shabaab from Bulo-Burte in 2014, since then Al-shabab carried out several deadly attacks against the bases of allied forces and government institutions.

Somali Journalists Protest AMISOM Sniffer Dogs

11 May – Source: Radio Dalsan – 114 Words

Somali Journalists have protested against AMISOM security measure which involved sniffer dogs on Sunday. The Journalists were invited to cover European Union Day event organized by EU representatives in the country. They said they were forced to be searched by sniffer dogs which is contrary to the Islamic values and Somali culture. The journalists later left the event after AMISOM security personnel insisted on the search by sniffer dogs. There has been clash between Somali citizens and African Union troops in Somalia in the past concerning sniffer dogs search. According to Somali culture dogs are filthy animals which must not be have contact with human body or life.

Somalia President Calls Arab Countries To Invest In Somalia

11 May – Source : Somali Current – 76 Words

Somalia President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud has called on Arab countries to invest Somalia as the country rises from more than two decades of civil war.The President today hosted Arab countries ambassadors to Somalia and briefed them the political progress in the country and urged them to play their role in the reconstruction of the country.“We appreciated the support of Arab countries and I urge you to invest the country”, said the President.

UN Highlights Somalia’s Humanitarian Challenges

11 May – Source: Radio Danan – 242 Words

The United Nations Humanitarian Coordinator for Somalia said the “multi-faceted” challenge presented by Somalia is different to that posed in other countries, highlighting challenges facing the humanitarian community working in Somalia. “We are dealing with a country putting things together again,” said Philippe Lazzarini. “We have a post-conflict situation but we also have a conflict existing. We have military operations but we also have different stages of recovery and development.” That meant that aid delivery remained incredibly dangerous, and Mr. Lazzerini had described to UN Member States the challenges of delivering humanitarian assistance, as highlighted by the attack three weeks earlier in northern Somalia on UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) workers, where four lost their lives and five were wounded.

“I think it’s an understatement to say that Somalia remains one of the largest and most complex emergencies in the world,” he said, pointing to figures, such as the fact that three million people need humanitarian assistance or livelihood support, among whom 740,000 are unable to meet food needs, as well as 200,000 children who are severely malnourished. He stressed the vulnerability of the one million internally displaced persons (IDPs) in the country, whose vulnerability made them “pariahs among pariahs” as they continued to live in appalling conditions. Mr. Lazzerini underlined Somalia’s susceptibility to natural disasters and food insecurity and said it was still too early to say whether the harvest would be sufficient or not.

INTERNATIONAL MEDIA

Somali President Committed To More Inclusive Vote In 2016

11 May – Source: Reuters/Yahoo News – 369 Words

The president of Somalia has said he is committed to holding elections on time next summer, before his current term runs out in August 2016, and wants a more inclusive voting process than in the past. In Somalia’s last election in 2012, members of parliament were chosen by elders from their communities and those lawmakers then picked Hassan Sheikh Mohamud as president. Somalia has been struggling to rebuild after two decades of war and chaos and is still battling an Islamist insurgency. Diplomats say delays in writing a new constitution, registering voters and other groundwork mean an earlier goal of holding a one-person-one-vote poll looks unrealistic.

“One thing I can assure, there will not be an extension, and the next government will be brought by Somali citizens,” Mohamud told a news conference in Mogadishu on Sunday. “We are not pursuing an extension of the mandate. “Right now, what we are pursuing is, we want the next parliament to have more legitimacy,” he said. He said it was possible “millions” of Somalis would participate. U.N. envoy to Somalia Nick Kay told Reuters last week one option would be to expand the number of people choosing the president to include elders, civil society, women’s groups and others, but added it was it was up to Somalis to decide.

Many Somalis have come home from abroad as a semblance of peace returns to some areas. Kenya hosts 335,000 in its Dadaab refugee camp, near the Somalia border. “If we don’t prepare the ground for the returnees, then it won’t be feasible,” the president said, when asked about the possible return of refugees from Kenya. He said refugees depended on education, health and other services in Dadaab that were lacking in Somalia. “At least some level of that care needs to be available in Somalia. Otherwise, when they home here, they see the situation, they will go back,” he said. The U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, Antonio Guterres, said during a visit to Dadaab last week the U.N. agency had identified three areas of Somalia that might be safe enough to return to, but said the process must be voluntary.

Somaliland: Risking Torture For A Better Life Abroad

11 May – Source: Al-Jazeera – 1,067 Words

Outside his two bedroom house made of tin in the heart of Hargeisa, capital of the breakaway Somaliland region, Kosar Dhool cuts an exhausted figure burdened with events far heavier than his slim frame can bear. The father of five has been receiving phone calls from his son, Hamza, who has been captured and held for ransom by human smugglers in an unknown location in Libya. “He called to say they are going to take out his kidneys and sell them for money if I don’t pay the $2,100 ransom,” Dhool told Al Jazeera, sitting on a plastic chair under a tree that barely provided shade from the boiling midday sun. Hamza, 18, is a bright high school student with much promise ahead of him. He is well-liked in his neighbourhood and everyone here is in a state of shock at his capture. For the past two years, Dhool had been working extra shifts to save up enough money to send Hamza to university in the hope he would then be able to help the family support his younger siblings. “He was my best hope, very intelligent,” Dhool said, rubbing sweat from his receding greying hairline, as four of his other children sat around him. “I still don’t know what got to him to risk his life.”

Two months ago, Dhool paid $4,000 to human traffickers in Sudan, who had also held Hamza for ransom. He received calls and was forced to listen to the cries of his son being tortured every morning until he paid up. “I have no words to describe how I felt. Only a parent can imagine how listening to your son getting tortured feels.” Dhool, who works as a security guard, asked Hamza to return home. But Hamza had other plans and his father’s pleas fell on deaf ears. Hamza continued on to Libya hoping this time luck would be on his side. He was planning to cross the Mediterranean Sea to reach Europe on one of the overcrowded smuggling boats, where rough seas have claimed the lives of thousands of African migrants in recent years. Hamza never made it to the vessel, however. For the second time he fell into the hands of kidnappers, and the painful ordeal of being held captive and tortured was repeated. Receiving ransom calls and listening to the cries of his son are the norm every morning, Dhool said. Hamza is not the only one to try his luck attempting to reach Europe’s shores. Dozens are missing from his neighbourhood in Hargeisa.

The risk of kidnapping and torture doesn’t sway young people from attempting to cross the harsh Sahara desert and inhospitable Mediterranean Sea. Almost everyone in this city knows someone or has heard of someone who attempted the arduous journey. Many say there is no choice. Unemployment is sky-high among young people who make up more than 70 percent of the population in Somalia. Of those, 67 percent under the age of 29 are currently unemployed,according to the UN, one of the highest jobless rates in the world. Eid Mohamed Diriye has tried to go abroad twice and is in the process of trying again. As most youth are penniless, smugglers don’t ask for any money until they reach the Sahara desert. In the desert, far away from the authorities, the smugglers turn the migrants into a commodity that changes hands many times between smugglers and kidnappers, who hold them captive and release them only after ransoms in thousands of dollars are paid.

OPINION/ANALYSIS/CULTURE

“Unfortunately, none of them trust Amisom to keep them safe. The result is that each camp has its own security, creating a series of forts within forts as the base grows. Most have their own concentric rings of razor wire and blast walls. One even boasts an empty moat. Perhaps this is how foreign quarters are born, but any thoughts that this is another neo-colonial adventure are hard to reconcile with the glut of disposable architecture.”

Segregation and Security: Life Inside MIA

11 May – Source: The Times – 644 Words

Men holding hands stroll along the shore at dusk while joggers bound along the coral headland towards a sandy bay fringed with rock pools and a runway. Some men run topless. Women, who are few, tend to carry radios but others carry guns. Big men run with bodyguards, who park armoured cars along their route. As the sun dips each day the ocean promenade is the place to be seen on Mogadishu’s international airport base, known as MIA. The camp is a prison of sorts. Its inmates are soldiers and diplomats and UN officials, who are trapped behind the blast walls of their own good intentions, cut off from the country they are trying to save. Some are let out on day release, in bulletproof cars with armed guards, but for most the sunset run is the closest they get to Somalia. Apart from drinking in the base’s bars, it is one of the only forms of recreation and a welcome chance to flee their air-conditioned apartments and offices. It is also perhaps the only place on MIA that people can mix, without the segregations of security fences and ID badges which separate soldiers, civilians and contractors along unspoken lines of race, pay and rank.

MIA has grown on the edge of Mogadishu airport. Originally the headquarters of the African Union (Amisom) force, which is fighting Al Shabaab, the UN retreated inside after its offices in town were overrun two years ago. Britain’s embassy moved there in 2013, from its self-imposed exile in Nairobi. There are squads of various special forces. The EU is to build a mission by the sea. There are also war profiteers, eager for a slice of the $460 million a year that the UN provides for its mission’s “logistics and administrative support”. “Go to the airport and look at all the planes parked there,” complained Abdirashid Mohamed Hidig, the Somalia’s interior minister. “They spend all their money on conferences and contractors but that money doesn’t help the Somali people on the ground.” While African nations risk their soldiers’ lives in battle, the UN hires legions of contractors to keep them in the fight by providing military training, mine clearance and air ambulances. Troops from Burundi, Djbouti, Ethiopia, Kenya, Sierra Leone and Uganda take the risks. Shareholders in America, Europe and South Africa get rich. “If you want to rent a vehicle for $100 a day it is very difficult. To get less than $50,000 takes two to three months and many proposals,” Mr Hidig added. “But if you want to hold a conference in Nairobi and you need half a million dollars, you get that in two days.”

Of course, the UN needs people to build their bases, fly their planes, clean their bedrooms, wash their clothes, cook their food and spin their news. All these contractors need a piece of turf on MIA. Unfortunately, none of them trust Amisom to keep them safe. The result is that each camp has its own security, creating a series of forts within forts as the base grows. Most have their own concentric rings of razor wire and blast walls. One even boasts an empty moat. Perhaps this is how foreign quarters are born, but any thoughts that this is another neo-colonial adventure are hard to reconcile with the glut of disposable architecture. The Italians built arches and cathedrals when they colonised Somalia. Yet for all the UN talk of sustainability, nothing is built to last beyond its next mandate from New York. Most of the buildings are made of plastic — apart from the bunkers, which have recently been equipped with wi-fi so staff can carry on working during an attack. It’s another vote of confidence in how well things are going. For the prisoners inside MIA, it is little wonder that they run.

No Timetable For Refugees’ Return To Unstable Somalia, UN Says

10 May – Source: Daily Nation – 450 Words

Dire and dangerous conditions in Somalia do not permit a foreseeable return of large numbers of refugees from Kenya, a United Nations aid official said on Friday. “It is not yet possible to think of any time frame for large-scale return of the refugees,” UN Humanitarian Coordinator for Somalia Philippe Lazzarini said at a press briefing in New York. Aid providers already face enormous challenges in meeting the needs of one million internally displaced Somalis and two million more inside the country who require humanitarian assistance, Mr Lazzarini added. Al-Shabaab killed four Unicef workers in northern Somalia three weeks ago, he noted. Sending some 500,000 refugees back to Somalia from Dadaab in these circumstances would impede efforts to achieve peace and stability in the country, Mr Lazzarini said. Kenyan leaders had threatened last month to close Dadaab by July. But the government eased its stance following objections from the UN and the United States. Comments last week by a senior US State Department official served to highlight the precarious military and political situation in Somalia. Speaking to reporters in Nairobi on May 4 following Secretary of State John Kerry’s surprise visit to Somalia, the official said central Mogadishu was judged too unsafe to allow the top US diplomat to venture beyond the heavily fortified airport on the outskirts of the capital.

“The last thing we need is something to happen when the secretary is on the ground,” said the US official who spoke on condition of remaining anonymous. “And I don’t think we have the confidence of taking him … off the grounds of the airport.” The official also offered a sceptical appraisal of the Somali government’s ability to organise full-on national elections next year. The scheduled voting would be carried out in accordance with a “Vision 2016” plan for establishing representative rule in the country. “The hope was that they would have elections by 2016, but I think we have to be realistic,” the official said. “This is not going to be a one man, one vote election as we would have hoped it to be.” The US is pushing the Somali government to hold “some form of election or selection that is different from what they’ve done before,” the official added. Rather than again hand-picking representatives, Somali authorities should involve local communities in the process, the official said. Somalia President Hassan Sheikh Mohamoud subsequently insisted that “free and fair elections will take place in the country, and this is the reality on the ground.” His government does not intend to delay the polling, President Mohamoud added in a May 6 speech on state television.