April 28, 2017 | Morning Headlines

Main Story

Roadside Blast Kills 3 Somali Soldiers

28 April – Source : Xinhua – 152 Words

At least three Somali soldiers were killed and four others injured on Thursday in a landmine explosion at Janay Abdala near Kismayo town in southern Somalia. Jubbaland army official, Hassan Iraqi, told reporters that blast happened when Jubbaland forces, AMISOM and other foreign troops returned from a joint operation in the region. “I can confirm that three Jubbaland forces were killed and four others injured in the roadside blast,” Iraqi said. “There were no casualties on AMISOM and other foreign soldiers who returned from a special operation against Al-Shabaab militants.” He denied reports that U.S. soldiers were among those targeted in the blast in Lower Jubba region in southern Somalia.

Al-Shabaab militants claimed responsibility for the attack. The group claimed to have killed and injured American soldiers in the roadside bomb attack. The landmine blast came days after airstrikes increased in Lower Jubba and Gedo regions in Jubbaland State in Somalia.

Key Headlines

Roadside Blast Kills 3 Somali Soldiers (Xinhua)
KDF Airstrikes In Somalia Reportedly Killed Militants (Shabelle News)
EU Maritime Capacity Building Mission Organizes CID Training Course In Hargeisa (Radio Dalsan)
China Donates 10 Mln USD To Tackle Drought In Somalia (People.cn)
Emirates Mobile Field Hospital Opens In Somalia (Emirates News Agency)
Somalia Facing ‘Unimaginable’ Hunger Crisis – Veteran Irish Aid Worker (The Irish Times)

NATIONAL MEDIA

KDF Airstrikes In Somalia Reportedly Killed Militants

27 April – Source : Shabelle News – 87 Words

A Somali military officer says several Al Shabaab militants and commanders were killed in series of KDF airstrikes in War-Gaduud area near El Wak city in Gedo region in this week.The official who spoke on condition of anonymity told Radio Shabelle that those killed in the aerial bombing include deputy commander of Al-Shabaab in Gedo region, Ali Shangalow. The Military source confirmed that the operation also killed two other Al-Shabaab militants.Al-Shabaab is yet to release a statement on the reported airstrikes by Kenyan military jets.

EU Maritime Capacity Building Mission Organizes CID Training Course In Hargeisa

27 April – Source : Radio Dalsan – 187 Words

The EU Maritime Capacity Building Mission (EUCAP) organized a comprehensive Criminal Investigation Department (CID) training course in Hargeisa in cooperation with the Somaliland Police. A total of twenty-five trainees participated in the course including ten Police Officers, ten Coast Guard Officers and 5 Prosecutors. The participants learned about investigation techniques, evidence handling and crime scene management. Besides mentoring and advising on technical aspects of the training, the course aimed at supporting and enhancing the collaboration among different law enforcement and maritime law enforcement agencies.

Understanding partner needs in the chain of the mutual task of investigating crime cases will lead to more effective law enforcement actions. “A comprehensive training with the interaction of Police, Coast Guard and prosecutors is an important step in contributing to security capacity building in Somaliland,” said EUCAP Somalia Police Adviser, who led the facilitation of the course. As part of the course’s closing ceremony, the Mission donated equipment for investigation of crime scenes to the Somaliland police force that included digital cameras with extra lenses, two forensic optical comparators and a set of special torches for different crime scene or laboratory use.

INTERNATIONAL MEDIA

China Donates 10 Mln USD To Tackle Drought In Somalia

27 April – Source : People.cn – 241 Words

China on Wednesday granted the World Food Programme (WFP) 10 million U.S. dollars to bolster its humanitarian work in drought-stricken Somalia where more than 6 million people are food insecure.WFP Country Director Laurent Bukera said the funds will allow the UN food agency to deploy emergency humanitarian assistance to more than 200,000 people.”This grant will support Somalis and will allow WFP to deploy emergency assistance to more than 200,000 for probably up to four months assistance,” Bukera said.

China also contributed 2 million U.S. dollars to WFP emergency response last year that helped it support close to 50,000 children and mothers to address malnutrition in the country, Bukera said.He said WFP has continued to scale up its humanitarian activities in the Horn of Africa nation by reaching vulnerable people through its cash-based transfer program.The Chinese Ambassador to Somalia Qin Jian hoped Somalia will overcome the natural disasters and rebuild their home, saying Beijing has long term support for Somalia.”China and Somalia enjoy long term friendship. The diplomatic ties between brotherly states began in December in 1960, but relations between the two countries were there six hundred years ago,” he said, adding China had carried out 89 projects including Benadir hospital, National Theater and Stadium Mogadishu between 1960 and 1991.

Emirates Mobile Field Hospital Opens In Somalia

27 April – Source : Emirates News Agency – 198 Words

Emirates Mobile Field Hospital has been inaugurated in Somalia to treat the children and the elderly people there. Emirati-Somali voluntary medical staff treated 1,000 children and the elderly on the first day of the inauguration. The Zayed Giving Caravans have continued their efforts and humanitarian initiatives in Somalia in the framework of the assistance provided by the UAE, as per the directives of its wise leadership, to the people of Somalia.

These efforts are in line with the directives of President His Highness Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan, who has declared 2017 as the Year of Giving. The hospital in Hargeisa provides the best diagnostic, therapeutic and medical preventive services to the needy children and the elderly, under the supervision of a joint Somali-Emirati medical team from government and private institutions, and a joint humanitarian initiative from Zayed Giving Initiative, Dar Al-Bar Association, in coordination with officials in Hargeisa.

The mobile hospital employs 50 voluntary medical staff from the UAE and Somalia, as well as humanitarian doctors headed by Dr. Adel Al-Shamri, CEO of Zayed Giving Initiative, besides the doctors and surgeons from Egypt and many other countries working under the voluntary framework and humanitarian umbrella.

OPINION, ANALYSIS, AND CULTURE

“I am quite used to seeing children under five who are malnourished but it is when you see older children who are quite thin and emaciated, that is quite hard. Normally older children are able to fend for themselves,” she said. She witnessed families travelling long distances to the outskirts of cities, seeking food, and setting up makeshift camps that are “on top of one another” and a “huge fire hazard.” At the first camp she visited, 100 families, each comprising on average four to five people, had arrived that day”

Somalia Facing ‘Unimaginable’ Hunger Crisis – Veteran Irish Aid Worker

27 April – Source : The Irish Times – 522 Words

A veteran Irish aid worker has described hunger conditions in Somalia as being the most devastating she has seen and worse than during the country’s 2011-2012 famine that killed 260,000 people. Two weeks after her return from the area around the East African country’s capital of Mogadishu, Carol Morgan, Concern Worldwide’s regional director for the Horn of Africa, spoke of children dying on roads as they travelled to the charity’s emergency feeding centres. “It is the scale of it that is vast,” said Ms Morgan. “I saw so many malnourished children. They had a famine in Somalia in 2011-2012. What they are saying is that this time even more people are affected. The scale is greater than what happened then. However, I think maybe we are reacting faster but we need to continue with that.”

Some 6.2 million people, more than half the country’s population, are in need of urgent food assistance due to conflict and the most severe drought in decades, according to the Irish charity. “Overall, if you are looking at East Africa, you are talking about 20 million people at risk of starvation. It is just unimaginable,” said Ms Morgan. Famine has already been declared in parts of war-torn South Sudan, while Kenya and Ethiopia are experiencing serious food shortages. An estimated 363,000 children under the age of five are acutely malnourished. Some 133,000 children are estimated to have died in Somalia’s last famine.

During her brief visit Ms Morgan travelled the conflict-ridden country with an armed escort, visiting several camps and nutritional centres where Concern is providing food, water, shelter and sanitation along with cash transfers via mobile phones. She described distressing scenes where many hungry and thirsty children with swollen stomachs were not reaching the charity’s feeding centres and were “dying in their villages and on the road.” “I am quite used to seeing children under five who are malnourished but it is when you see older children who are quite thin and emaciated, that is quite hard. Normally older children are able to fend for themselves,” she said.

She witnessed families travelling long distances to the outskirts of cities, seeking food, and setting up makeshift camps that are “on top of one another” and a “huge fire hazard.” At the first camp she visited, 100 families, each comprising on average four to five people, had arrived that day. At one of the charity’s health centres, she met a mother who had just given birth after walking for five days with her other children, all malnourished, before being transported to the centre.