April 5, 2016 | Daily Monitoring Report
Somali Lawmaker Injured, Guards Killed In Al-Shabaab Shooting
05 April – Source: Bloomberg – 77 Words
Somali militant group Al-Shabaab said it carried out a drive-by shooting in the capital that seriously wounded a lawmaker and killed his two bodyguards. The al-Qaeda-linked fighters said Tuesday’s attack on Mohamed Ali Diheye was part of a campaign against “apostates,” according to a statement issued by Radio Andalus, a broadcaster that supports their insurgency. Police officer Hassan Diriye said the lawmaker’s car was blocked at a busy market in Mogadishu’s Hamarweyne district and gunmen opened fire.
Key Headlines
- Somali Lawmaker Injured Guards Killed In Al-Shabaab Shooting (Bloomberg)
- Heavy Rain Pounds Mogadishu Roads Flooded And Transport Hindered (Goobjoog News)
- Puntland Lawmakers Boycott Garowe Agreement (Shabelle News)
- Djibouti Expels BBC Journalists Ahead Of Presidential Elections (Hiiraan Online)
- African Union Says 6 Al-Shabaab Commanders Killed In Somalia (Bloomberg)
- Somali Leaders Plan To Revise Election Model (VOA)
- Interview-British FGM Survivor Hopes Her Memoir Will Help End “This Barbaric Abuse” (Reuters Africa)
NATIONAL MEDIA
Heavy Rain Pounds Mogadishu, Roads Flooded And Transport Hindered
05 April – Source: Goobjoog News – 259 Words
Despite a severe drought in several regions of Somalia, many people in Mogadishu were caught by the rain that pounded the city on Tuesday morning. The downpour resulted into flooding major roads like Mogadishu-Afgooye road due to poor drainage. The downpour in Mogadishu left residents of IDP camps counting losses after floodwaters washed houses and rendered paths impassable. Dozens of houses in the camps were partially submerged in water, displacing families and damaging household property.
Last Thursday, The United Nations’ aid chief for Somalia asked for more cash to curb the droughts. “Urgent action is required right now. If not, we risk a rapid and deep deterioration of the situation, as drought conditions may worsen in the coming months,” UN Humanitarian Coordinator for Somalia Peter de Clercq said, appealing for $105 million (92 million euros) for “life-saving” aid for more than one million people.
Puntland Lawmakers Boycott Garowe Agreement
05 April – Source: Shabelle News – 105 Words
Members of Puntland parliament council have boycotted agreement between federal government of Somalia and Puntland on 2016 electoral process. Burhan Aden Abdi, a lawmaker said they will not accept the clan power-sharing 4.5 electoral model in which he said Puntland will not accept and use it in coming parliamentary and presidential election of Somalia.
“The clan formula of 4.5 model is the main current challenges of Somalia and it should be removed,” said Abdi while giving a phone interview with Radio Shabelle. He said Puntland leader Abdiweli Mohamed Ali Gaas has lost his people’s confident after signing and accepting 4.5 during Garowe talks brokered by international community.
Djibouti Expels BBC Journalists Ahead Of Presidential Elections
05 April – Source: Hiiraan Online – 221 Words
Djibouti’s government has expelled journalists from the BBC after more than 16 hours of detention in the capital, the Corporation announced on Monday. The team who arrived in Djibouti to cover the presidential elections which is due to take place on April 8 were put on a plane at the Djibouti city’s airport after interviewing the foreign minister and an opposition candidate who is running for the presidential seat, BBC said.
Djiboutian government hasn’t yet commented on the expulsion of the journalists who were reportedly granted media accreditations to report from the tiny horn of Africa nation. 16 candidates including the long-serving incumbent president Ismail Guelleh are expected to run for the country’s top seat in the upcoming elections. Mr. Guelleh who was elected as the president in 1999, after succeeding Hassan Gouled Aptidon, who had ruled Djibouti since independence in 1977 had maintained a firm grip over the power in Djibouti.
However rights groups often accuse his government of silencing opposition politicians and journalists. Some of the opposition leaders were also chased to exile. He was re-elected in 2005 and again in 2011; however, his re-elections were largely boycotted by the opposition parties amid complaints over widespread irregularities. Elections have taken place in Djibouti in every six years since the country’s civil war ended in the 1990s.
INTERNATIONAL MEDIA
African Union Says 6 Al-Shabaab Commanders Killed in Somalia
05 April – Source: Bloomberg – 246 Words
Somalia’s army and African Union forces said they killed at least six al-Qaeda-linked militant commanders in the country’s southern Lower Shabelle region amid an upsurge in fighting. The dead Al-Shabaab members included a judge in Janaale town and a Yemeni explosives specialist, the African Union mission in Somalia, or Amisom, said Tuesday in an e-mailed statement. There was no independent confirmation of the casualties.
“Operations to open the main supply route to the town of Janaale and clear improvised explosive devices continue and have now extended into the town,” Amisom said. “The clearance activities are meant to ease the movement of the population and goods.” Al-Shabaab has waged an insurgency in the Horn of Africa nation since 2006 in a bid to impose a strict version of Islamic law. While the group has lost ground since being driven out of the capital, Mogadishu, in 2011 by government and Amisom forces, it continues to stage deadly gun and bomb attacks.
Janaale, about 75 kilometers (46 miles) southwest of Mogadishu, had been under Al-Shabaab control since September. The militants attacked a base in the town used by Ugandan soldiers earlier that month, killing at least 12. A local resident, Mohamed Ali, said by phone that Amisom troops withdrew from the town shortly after recapturing it and Al-Shabaab fighters returned and took up “strategic positions.” Radio Andalus, a broadcaster that supports the Islamists, said Al-Shabaab were back in control of Janaale after a few hours’ seizure by “enemy forces.”
Somali Leaders Plan To Revise Election Model
04 April – Source: VOA – 325 Words
Somalia’s central government and officials from the semi-autonomous Puntland region have agreed on a plan to revise the elections system after this year’s voting, a move that could ease decades of political instability and conflict. The current clan-based formula, still in place for choosing the next president and parliament sometime this August, tentatively would be scrapped and replaced by a one-person, one-vote system for the 2020 elections.
In a statement to the media, Somali Prime Minister Omar Abdirashid Ali Sharmarke welcomed the proposed reform to the Horn of Africa nation’s electoral process. For years, Somali governments have been constructed using the so-called 4.5 formula, a system that gives equal representation to the country’s four major clans and a smaller number of posts to so-called minor clans.
Whether the formula is blame or not, the country has had a string of unstable governments that failed to win popularity or exert much authority. It might be hard to fulfill some aspects of the new plan, said Ali Adawe, a Somali politician based in Nairobi. He said that a similar 2012 proposal involved changing how representatives would be chosen and that this latest deal appeared to contain several loopholes.
OPINION, ANALYSIS, AND CULTURE
“FGM nearly cost Wardere her life and she remembers many girls who never reappeared from their huts. Yet the practice remains almost universal in Somalia where parents see it as an important purification rite designed to protect a girl’s virginity. Many also believe the ritual, called gudnin in Somalia, is a religious duty even though it predates Islam and is not mentioned in the Koran.”
Interview-British FGM Survivor Hopes Her Memoir Will Help End “This Barbaric Abuse”
05 April – Source: Reuters Africa – 851Words
Hibo Wardere’s childhood ended abruptly at six years old when she was led to a hut outside her Mogadishu home, pinned to the floor and subjected to the most brutal form of female genital mutilation (FGM). As a wizened old woman hacked between her legs with a rusty blade, the little girl screamed out repeatedly for her “mummy” – the person she loved and trusted most in the world. But her mother turned away. From that day on she never called her “mummy” again.
Like all girls in Somalia who undergo FGM, Wardere was told never to speak about what had happened. But 40 years on, she is determined to break the secrecy that she said perpetuates this “barbaric and medieval abuse”. This week sees the publication of her memoir “Cut”, the first book about FGM in Britain where Wardere has lived since fleeing civil war in Somalia as a teenager.
“I felt as if someone had dropped me into bright orange molten lava,” she wrote, recalling the day she was cut. “From head to toe the pain burned … exploding in my brain … every nerve ending screaming in agony.” But worse was the complete sense of betrayal by her mother. “My life changed forever,” Wardere told the Thomson Reuters Foundation. “It severed the closeness, the bond, the trust – everything was gone.”
Wardere, a mother of seven from northeast London, is part of a growing anti-FGM campaign in Britain, where an estimated 137,000 women and girls are believed to have been cut and 60,000 girls are thought to be at risk. She works for a new government-led FGM prevention programme, talking to teachers, school children, medical staff and the police. Her message is simple: FGM is child abuse and everyone has a duty to end it.
TOP TWEETS
@garsoornews : Somali MP Mohamed Ali Dahaye wounded, his driver and bodyguard killed in drive-by-shooting in#Mogadishu. #Somalia. #Alshabaab claims resp.
@omabha : US air strike in Somalia killed senior al Shabaab leader – Pentagon – Reuters UK http://dlvr.it/KzF98x #Somalia
@Bogorad_Olga : #Somalia #AMISOM claims killing of six more #alShabaab commanders during security ops in#LowerShabelle – 7 in total
@Daudoo : Heavy fighting between #Ethiopia forces &#AlShabaab ongoing in Ula-Jarad village near El-Bur town in central #Somalia – Reports.
@maali5: http://www.aljazeera.com/
@xasanmmc : #Somalia : rain in #Awdal, where there was water shortage exist and people dead for hungry.
@MarcoLembo01 : Somali returnees from #Kenya by expected areas of return in #Somalia – map and fundingshttp://1drv.ms/1MaCv2
@allafrica : ‘Tanzanian Spy’ Executed By Al-Shabaabhttp://allafrica.com/view/
@Mogadishuupdate : #Somalia president #Hassan fully supported #Dalkaaga1dolarkushido campaign, and previously supported @fursadfund
IMAGE OF THE DAY
AMISOM Acting Force Commander Concluding a Tour of Kismayo, Dobley and Bilis Qoqani In Sector 2.
Photo: AMISOM