April 14, 2016 | Daily Monitoring Report
Three Wounded In Marko Fighting
14 April – Source: Shabelle News – 153 Words
At least three people have been wounded in a fierce fight between Somali government forces and armed militia in the southern coastal town of Marko, the provincial capital of Lower Shabelle region. Reports from the town indicate that the gun battle between the two sides erupted following a disagreement over money being collected from the public transport at illegal checkpoints in the city.
Thursday’s clashes have temporarily halted business activities in the seaside in Marko, which once served as a major base for Al Shabaab until 2012 when Somali and AMISOM troops pushed the militants of the town.Armed groups at the illegal checkpoints in the region usually impose huge levies on public service vehicles and harass passengers if the drivers don’t pay the money.The federal government of Somalia has previously issued a stern warning to the militiamen who set up the illegal roadblocks in Lower Shabelle region.
Key Headlines
- Three Wounded In Marko Fighting (Shabelle News )
- About 100 Police Recruits Pass Out In Mogadishu University Graduates Top The List (Goobjoog News)
- Kismayo City Gets First Ultra-modern Super Market (Kismaayo.com)
- Inter-clan Clashes Flare Up In Beledweyne (Goobjooge.com)
- Measles In Remote Part Of Galgadud Central Somalia (Radio Ergo)
- Somalia Leaders Agree To Hold Elections This Year (Daily Nation)
- Somali Pirates Jailed By French Court For Fatal Hijacking (Digital Journal)
- Yemenis Escaping Conflict Flee To Somaliland (VOA)
- Somalia: The Faces of Terror And The Future Implications For The Country (Horseed Media)
NATIONAL MEDIA
About 100 Police Recruits Pass Out In Mogadishu, University Graduates Top The List.
14 April- Source: Goobjoog News – 106 Words
A total of 93 police recruits graduated today from the police academy General Kahiye in Mogadishu. The recruits who include over ten women are mostly university and secondary school graduates from various parts of the country.
Banaadir governor Yusuf Jima’ale said the calibre of trainees was quite impressive and that this would encourage more young people to join the disciplined forces. “The fact that these are university and secondary school graduates means that police service is now viewed as a respectable profession in Somalia. This will change the view people have of the police and attract more qualified young people to join the forces,” said Jima’ale.
Kismayo City Gets First Ultra-modern Super Market
13 April – Source: Kismaayo.com – 165 Words
The Kismayo city of Jubbaland has seen the first ultra-modern supermarket opened in the area in a colorful ceremony on Wednesday. The business venture by a group of businessmen known as Al-Hidaya was officially opened by the District Commissioner of Kismayo, Yussuf TimoJili’.
Chairman of the Jubbaland Chamber of Commerce Shaafi Raabi Kaahin, who also attended the ceremony, welcomed the joint venture by the local businessmen saying it was an initiative that was long overdue.“This is the first supermarket of its kind. I don’t think we have had a similar one before since the collapse of the central government,” said Kaahin urging local businessmen to introduce similar unique ventures.He said Somalis were known to compete in business but warned against flooding the market with the same products or business ventures. Shoppers expressed joy on seeing the biggest supermarket open its doors in the city. Some said they used to shop from as far as Mogadishu or even in the Kenyan capital of Nairobi.
Inter-clan Clashes Flare Up In Beledweyne
14 April – Source: Goobjooge.com – 99 Words
Reports from Beledweyne say that a fierce fighting has flared up in the outskirts of Beledweyne between two rival clan militias.
Reports say the two clan militias are fighting over a grazing land in the area, which later sparked into physical confrontations. Initial reports say the fighting caused casualties and displacement of dozens of families.The two clans had previously fought in the area. The incident comes at a time when a reconciliation conference for Hiran clans is underway in Beledweyne. The area is characterized by scarcity of pasture and water, resources that are often found in disputed lands.
Measles In Remote Part Of Galgadud, Central Somalia.
13 April – Source: Radio Ergo – 366 Words
Two children under the age of five have died of measles in Marsamage, 130 km from Adado town, Galgadud region of Central Somalia.Another 29 patients are infected and are being cared for by family at home due to the lack of access to medical services.
Fuad Abdullahi Abdi, formerly head of the area’s only Mother and Child Healthcare centre (MCH) that closed two years ago, said people are still turning to him for advice. He told Radio Ergo measles was first identified in the areas 10 days ago. It is likely there were more cases measles in other nearby villages.Fuad said he was trying to organise to collect contributions from local people to buy medicines needed to treat measles patients. They have so far collected $375 and bought some drugs to deliver to families with sick patients as soon as they can.
Shukri Mahamud Kediye has eight children who are all sick with measles. She told Radio Ergo her children have been ill for two weeks. “Some of them are too ill, and they are too weak to take any food. They cannot even stand up. They have high temperatures and sores in their mouths,” she said.Shukri said she was trying to manage the children’s fever by wiping them with a wet cloth. She said other local remedies included rubbing the patient’s skin with a mixture of local herbs, covering the patient with the bloody skin of a freshly slaughtered dik-dik.
The nearest medical services are in Bahdo, 30 km from Marsamage, but vehicles do not travel there regularly. Getting to Adado costs Sosh 3.8m, roughly $160.The people living in the area are pastoralists whose livestock has lost much of its value due to the lack of pasture and poor condition of the animals.The last time a vaccination campaign was carried out in Marsamage was April 2014.Fuad said most of those infected with measles were pastoralists, who had moved to the area over the past seven months to get water from a newly opened borehole with a pump. Here a barrel of water cost Sosh 25,000, a quarter of the price of water in other nearby areas.
INTERNATIONAL MEDIA
Somalia Leaders Agree To Hold Elections This Year
14 April – Source: Daily Nation – 388 Words
Somali leaders have consented to the holding of a General Election later this year.The leaders made the resolution during a three-day conference that ended in Mogadishu on Tuesday.The regional states and the central government officials reiterated their commitment to a no extension of the terms of the legislative and the Federal Government beyond August 2016.They included President Hassan Sheikh Mohamoud, the Speaker of the Federal Parliament, Mr Mohammed Osman Jawari, Prime Minister of the Federal Government, Mr Omar Abdirashid Ali Sharmaarke and his deputy, Mr Mohamed Omar Arte.
The presidents of the semiautonomous states of Puntland, Galmudug, Southwest and Jubaland also took part in the three-day conference on the election modalities.The leaders agreed on an electoral process for a parliament composed of the Upper and a Lower houses or a House of Representatives.Since Somalia declared last year that the one-man, one-vote system was not achievable due to various factors including insecurity, the leaders chose an alternative modalities to select a 54-member Upper House and a 275-member Lower House.
According to a communique released later at Villa Somalia, the state house in Mogadishu, a federal and state level electoral teams will coordinate the process.The members of the Lower House will be picked through a clan-power sharing known as the 4.5 Formula, giving the four major groups equal share, while a coalition of smaller ones will share half the allocation.The communique read: “Each candidate will be elected by an Electoral College of 50 members. Therefore, the total electorate will be 275 MPs x 50 = 13,750.” It added: “The federal and regional administrations will approve the members of the Upper House.” Under this process, the Horn of Africa country is expected to have a two-chamber parliament by August 2016 and a president elected by the combined MPs in September.
Somali Pirates Jailed By French Court For Fatal Hijacking
14 April – Source: Digital Journal – 516 Words
Seven Somali pirates were sentenced to between six and 15 years in prison by a French court for the hijacking of a French yacht and killing of its owner in the Gulf of Aden in 2011.Christian and Evelyne Colombo were on a round-the-world trip when their “Tribal Kat” catamaran was hijacked by pirates in the Arabian Sea.
Christian was killed and his body dumped in the water, while his wife was held hostage for 48 hours before being rescued by the Spanish military.Two members of the gang identified as the “recruiters”, Farhan Abdisalamn Hassan and Ahmed Abdullahi Akid, were handed 15-year sentences.
Farhan Mohamoud Abchir, a minor at the time of the hijacking who has developed schizophrenia while in prison, according to his lawyer, was given the lightest six-year jail term.The prosecutor had sought terms of up to 22 years for the seven.”It’s hard to understand the range of the penalties, the motivations of the court. Fifteen years is a very heavy sentence,” said Augustin d’Ollone, lawyer for Akid Abdullahi.
The Colombo family cried as the sentence was read out.”It has been four years that we have sought life sentences. This verdict does not satisfy us,” the family said in a statement posted on social media.Before the sentence was read out, the Somalis asked for “forgiveness” for a crime they said haunted them “every day”.The Colombos had sold everything before embarking on a dream round-the-world trip.They left the Yemen port of Aden in early September 2011 and were heading for Oman — a journey that took them through notoriously pirate-infested waters — when naval authorities received a distress signal from their “Tribal Kat” catamaran.
Yemenis Escaping Conflict Flee To Somaliland
13 April – Source: Voice of America – Video: 2:22 Mins
In an unusual development, people from war-torn Yemen are fleeing to a region where citizens have been scattered the world over by decades of conflict. In the past year, nearly half of the 176,000 people who have fled Yemen’s conflict have gone to the Horn of Africa, according to the U.N. refugee agency. Many are Africans returning to their countries of origin but about 26,000 are Yemenis with nowhere else to turn. Jill Craig reports from Hargeisa in Somaliland.
OPINION, ANALYSIS, AND CULTURE
“Somalia has been branded as the most dangerous place in the world, mainly due to lack of political stability and safety, the latter is to a great extent the result of ineffective governments and active ruthless guerrilla attacks by Al-Shabaab. However, this militia is not invincible as has been shown during their incursion in Puntland; they can be defeated militarily,”
Somalia: The Faces of Terror And The Future Implications For The Country
12 April – Source: Horseed Media – 1744 Words
Somalia is a country battling with prolonged conflict and insecurity since its central government’s fall in 1991. The chief source of the insecurity is the activities of Al-Shabaab and organized crime.Al-Shabaab, is an al Qaeda affiliate, that operates primarily out of the country’s southern and central regions. The group is fighting the Somali Federal Government in Mogadishu as well as regional administrations. There are twenty-two thousand strong foreign troops, mainly AMISON from various African nations that were deployed to fight the group in and around Mogadishu, but they are having difficulty controlling them.
The small Somali National Army that is mainly based in Mogadishu is not trained or equipped enough to take over the fight of the insurgency on their own. The failure of the government forces to defeat this militia emboldened them to wage war on parts of Puntland State of Somalia, one of the most stable areas of the country, in an effort to destabilise it, but they were repulsed. After twenty-five years, Somalia still lacks a strong government that can restore security and establish a foundation for functional institutions for the country to recover and to rebuild.
Security is paramount for any government to function, particularly a fragile one like Somalia; a notion that current President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud understood when he took office in 2013 and pledged to make security a priority for his government. However, the questions many Somalis are asking are why Somalia’s instability is persisting for so long, how are these security concerns affecting development and governance in the country, and what are the solutions to combat security threats. In this article, I will explore the two main sources of insecurities in the country: Al-Shabaab and the outlier (organized crime).
TOP TWEETS
@mofasomalia:PM Omar Abdirashid will participate today in the 13th summit of OIC in #Istanbul, #Turkey. #OICSummit#Somalia
@HarunMaruf: French court jails Somali pirates for fatal hijacking
@Somaliupdate: German Cabinet Approves Extending Military Missions in Mali, Somalia.
@ActForSomalia: Siimad University Compus in Mogadishulooking lush and green.#nature
@mahadharako:All candidates Around the world are either elected by the people or appointed by the relevant authorities but #Somalia you need approval
IMAGE OF THE DAY
Somali President, Hassan Sheikh Mohamud arrives in Khartoum.
Source : Office Of The President.