March 26, 2018 | Morning Headlines

Car Bomb Kills At Least 4 People Near Parliament In Somalia Capital

25 March – Source: Associated Press – 321 Words

A car bomb exploded near Somalia’s parliament headquarters in the capital, Mogadishu, killing at least four people along with the driver, police said Sunday, with several others injured. A huge cloud of smoke could be seen billowing over the area dotted with security checkpoints erected along a road leading to the presidential palace, whose main gate is just 200 meters (yards) from the blast site. The checkpoint also is close to the interior ministry.

The car bomb was detonated at a checkpoint after soldiers intercepted and stopped a suspicious vehicle, senior police Capt. Mohamed Hussein told The Associated Press. Those dead included two soldiers, he said, while many of the nearly 10 people wounded are rickshaw drivers. A few hours earlier, another car bomb outside the capital killed one person plus the driver, police said. Officer Mohamed Abdi told the AP that the explosion occurred after soldiers arrived at the scene to inspect the “suspicious” car which had become stuck on a sandy road in the Sinka Dheer area.

The car bombings come three days after at least 14 people were killed and 10 others wounded in a car bomb blast near the Weheliye hotel on the busy Makka Almukarramah road. Mogadishu is often a target of attacks by the Somalia-based extremist group al-Shabab, the deadliest Islamic extremist group in Africa. A truck bombing in October killed 512 people in the country’s deadliest-ever attack. Only a few attacks since 9/11 have killed more people.

Key Headlines

• Car Bomb Kills At Least 4 People Near Parliament In Somalia Capital (Associated Press)
• Somali Parliament To Decide The Fate Of Embattled Speaker Next Week (Halbeeg News)
• Military Court Sentences Al-Shabaab Bomb Expert To Life In Prison (Hiiraan Online)
• AU Mission Trains Somali Police Officers On Human Rights (Xinhua News Agency)
• A Child Dies A Child Lives: Why Somalia Drought Is Not Another Famine (Reuters)

NATIONAL MEDIA

Somali Parliament To Decide The Fate Of Embattled Speaker Next Week

25 March – Source: Halbeeg – 185 Words

The motion against Somali Lower House speaker, Mohamed Osman Jawari will be tabled before the parliament next week to decide its fate, officials confirmed on Sunday. In a statement, the first Deputy Speaker of the parliament, Abdiweli Sheikh Mudey said the lawmakers will debate on the proposition on Saturday. “The session of house is scheduled to take place on Saturday (31st March). The agenda of the session will be the motion against the speaker of the house of the people, Mr. Mohamed Osman Jawari” reads the statement.

Dozens of Somali parliamentarians have appended their signatures to motion against Jawari who was accused of abuse of power, corruption and stifling of rights of MPs to debate. Mr. Jawari who initially dismissed the legality of the motion, had rescinded saying the motion had acquired its quorum threshold and can proceed ahead. The speaker has been holding the office since the beginning of the post Transitional Federal Government in 2012.The mounting political crisis between Prime Minister Hassan Khaire and Speaker Jawari had spilled into public after the speaker who addressed the media accused the government of interference.

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Military Court Sentences Al-Shabaab Bomb Expert To Life In Prison

25 March – Source: Hiiraan Online – 251 Words

One Al-Shabaab militant was sentenced to life in prison on Sunday while two others were condemned to serve ten years jails terms after they were found guilty of being associated with the militant insurgent group. A Somali military court found Mohamed Ali Abdi, Ahmed Adan Weerar and Mohamed Abdirahman Mohamud of being Al-Shabaab members. Col. Hassan Ali Shute, the chairperson of the court said the court found 30-year old Mohamed Mohamud Mohamed guilty of heading an Al-Shabaab terrorist cell. “Mohamed Mohamud was found guilty of being Al-Shabaab trainer and leading a cell of Al-Shabaab bomb makers,” said Shute.

The court handed Mohamed life imprisonment as Mohamed Ali Abdi and  Ahmed Adan Weerar, who themselves were trained by Mohamed got 10 years in jail terms each. “Therefore after reviewing all the evidence, Mohamed Mohamud will serve life in jail whereas Mohamed Ali Abdi and  Ahmed Adan Weerar who were trained by the first defendant will face 10 years in jail,” Shute ruled.

The trio were arrested early this month by Somali forces while preparing explosives at a house in Eilasha Biyaha area outside Mogadishu. The militant group has been waging deadly bomb attacks in Mogadishu and other towns since 2011 when its fighters lost the control of Mogadishu to African Union-backed Somali government forces. Last Thursday, a car packed with explosive went off near Wehliye Hotel along the busy Makka Al-mukarama road in Mogadishu, killing 17 and wounding 22 others seriously. Al-Shabaab, an Al-Qaida affiliate group claimed the responsibility for the attack.

INTERNATIONAL MEDIA

AU Mission Trains Somali Police Officers On Human Rights

25 March –  Source: Xinhua News Agency – 205 Words

The African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) on Saturday wrapped up gender awareness training for about 98 Somali police officers in four regional states in Somalia to help broaden their knowledge on human rights. The AU mission said the officers including other security personnel were trained in places including Kismayo, Baidoa, Beletweyne, with the most recent being in Adado in central Somalia.

Stella Maranga, the AMISOM Gender Officer, said the objective of the trainings is to try and sensitize the members of the military and the security forces on the importance of gender and respect for human rights. Maranga said the meetings were also meant to highlight issues of gender to the participants to enable them to handle such matters in their daily duties. “We have been conducting a series of trainings for the Somalia security sector; these trainings are targeting members of the security sector from the CID, the police, NISA, the military and also the civilians who work in the ministries that are related to the security sector,” she said in a statement issued in Mogadishu. AMISOM said the trainings were part of the mission’s elaborate program to help professionalize the Somali security forces and make it effective in maintaining law and order.

OPINION, ANALYSIS AND CULTURE

“In Dollow, the dusty town on the Ethiopian border where Mohamed lives with her surviving children, families say the cash has transformed their lives. Gacalo Aden Hashi, a young mother whose name means “sweetheart”, remembers trudging past two dead children in 2011 on her way to get help. A third was alive but dying, she said, and her weakened family had to press on,”

A Child Dies, A Child Lives: Why Somalia Drought Is Not Another Famine

24 March – Source: Reuters – 1151 Words

At the height of Somalia’s 2011 famine, Madow Mohamed had to leave her crippled five-year-old son Abdirahman by the side of the road to lead her eight other starving children towards help. When she returned to search for him, she found only a grave. He was among the 260,000 Somalis who perished. “You can never forget leaving your child to die,” she says, wiping away tears at the memory seven years later. “It is a hell that does not end.”

This time, the drought has been harsher. Three seasons of rains have failed, instead of two. But none of Mohamed’s other children have died – and the overall death toll, although unknown, is far lower. The United Nations has documented just over 1,000 deaths, mostly from drinking dirty water. Why? Earlier donor intervention, less interference by a weakened Islamist insurgency, a stronger Somali government and greater access for aid workers have been crucial. Another reason is that aid agencies are shifting from giving out food to cash – a less wasteful form of aid that donors such as Canada, Europe and Australia have embraced, although the United States still has restrictions on food aid.

The U.S. Congress will debate a move toward cash-based aid this year when lawmakers vote on a new Farm Bill. Christopher Barrett, an expert on food aid at Cornell University, is one of many scholars, politicians and aid agencies demanding reform. “A conservative estimate is that we sacrifice roughly 40,000 children’s lives annually because of antiquated food aid policies,” he told Congress in November. In 2011, a few donors gave out cash in Somalia, but the World Food Programme only gave out food. It was often hijacked by warlords or pirates, or rotted under tarpaulins as trucks sat at roadblocks.

Starving families had to trek for days through the desert to reach distribution points. Their route became so littered with children’s corpses it was called “the Road of Death”. Now, more than 70 percent of WFP aid in Somalia is cash, much of it distributed via mobile phones. More than 50 other charities are also giving out cash: each month Mohamed receives $65 from the Italian aid group Coopi to spend as she wants: milk, medicine, food or school fees. Cash has many advantages over food aid if markets are functioning. It’s invisible, so less likely to be stolen. It’s mobile so families can move or stay put.