April 6, 2017 | Morning Headlines
UAE Naval Base Deal Threat To Somali And Horn Of Africa Stability- Parliament
05 April – Source : Goobjoog News – 242 Words
Somali Parliament warned the naval base deal between the breakaway region of Somaliland and the United Arab Emirates could cause a further political instability in Somalia and the rest of the Horn of Africa. In a motion tabled before the House today, the lawmakers said the agreement which granted the Emirati military a 30 year lease to build and operate a naval base at the port of Berbera violated the country’s constitution and international law.
The lawmakers also warned the agreement not only compromised Somalia’s sovereignty but also jeopardize the unity and territorial integrity of the country. The motion signed by 20 lawmakers also sought the Federal Government’s stand on the matter and went ahead to summon the new administration to the House to explain what it knows regarding the agreement. Somaliland Senate passed a near unanimous vote February granting the UAE the lease besides a similar lease to UAE’s DP World months before to manage the port of Berbera for 30 years.
President Farmaajo has expressed his objection to the deal and was reported to have sought the intervention of the Saudi Defence Minister Mohamed bin Salman Al Saud at an informal level to convince the Emiratis to drop the deal. The lawmakers also said the deal would hurt the relations between Somalia and the UAE. A section of lawmakers in Somaliland including the Lower House speaker Abdirahman Mohamed Irro spoke against the deal warning it would compromise the region’s security.
Key Headlines
- UAE Naval Base Deal Threat To Somali And Horn Of Africa Stability- Parliament (Goobjoog News)
- AMISOM Foils Al-Shabaab Attack In Jalalaqsi Town (Shabelle News)
- Somali PM Meets With UN Envoy In Mogadishu (Shabelle News)
- Hassan Aden Desperate To Stay Alive As Drought Continues To Bite (AMISOM)
- Kenya Arrests 7 Suspected Human Traffickers In Refugee Camp (Associated Press)
- Drought-stricken Somalia Headed Toward Humanitarian Disaster (The Toronto Star)
NATIONAL MEDIA
AMISOM Foils Al-Shabaab Attack In Jalalaqsi Town
05 April – Source : Shabelle News – 172 Words
African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) said its forces Wednesday thwarted attempts by the Al-Shabaab militants to attack its base in Hiran region in south-west Somalia. The AU mission said the insurgents who have been fighting the Western-backed government retreated after incurring losses and injuries in an attempt to attack the base in Jalalaqsi town. “At around 03:00 today, Al-Shabaab fighters attempted an attack on our base in Jalalaqsi district, approximately 140 km south of Belet Weyne town,” said the AU mission. “Our troop’s quick reaction repulsed the Al-Shabaab militants who retreated after incurring losses and injuries to their fighters,” it added.
AMISOM, which crossed into the Horn of the African nation in 2007 and which has troops comprised of soldiers from Uganda, Sierra Leone, Burundi, Kenya and Ethiopia have been registering a string of successes against Al-Shabaab militia who had seized much of the central and southern Somalia. The group which has teamed up with global terror network Al-Qaeda is now vowing an all-out war in AMISOM and Somalia government bases.
Somali PM Meets With UN Envoy In Mogadishu
05 April – Source : Shabelle News – 95 Words
The Prime Minister of Somalia Hassan Ali Khaire has met with the United Nations envoy for Somalia Michael Keating at his office in Mogadishu. During the meeting, PM Khaire and UN’s envoy Michael Keating were reported to have discussed on a range of issues, including the drought, security, corruption and transparency. “The Cabinet is now in place, President Farmaajo and his government should focus on getting things done with the help of people & international support,” said Keating in a Twitter post. Somali PM has thanked the UN’s envoy for his continued support to Somalia.
INTERNATIONAL MEDIA
Hassan Aden Desperate To Stay Alive As Drought Continues To Bite Hassan Aden Desperate To Stay Alive As Drought Continues To Bite
05 April- Source: UNSOM- 617 Words
Hassan Buule Aden, is 40 years old and one of the new arrivals at Al-Adala camp for internally displaced persons seeking a quick response from government and the international community to help mitigate the devastating drought. Aden fled Dacaraale in the outskirts of Qoryooleey town, in Lower Shabelle region, to the temporary camp located at Mogadishu’s Kilometre 13 on March 15, leaving behind his two wives and nine children, at a place he refers to as safe, to set up at the camp ahead of their arrival.“Sahra (the camp manager) took us from the roadside when we arrived. She brought us to this hall we are sitting now and provided us with food. We were starving when we arrived here,” he tells. Aden and other IDPs trekked for 12 days before reaching Mogadishu.
Though the situation is better in the camp than in Dacaraale, Hassan says the response from the Somali government and the international community needs to be scaled up to save families left behind, not only in South West state but also in other parts of Somalia.Currently, they are surviving on donations from good Samaritans which are not enough to feed the 1000-plus IDPs in the camp.“When I arrived here I was so weak that I could not take a step. Now I am in the midst of people, I was given some clothes. I am provided with breakfast, lunch and dinner. Thanks to God I expect some more relief,” he says as a man passes by distributing dry pieces of bread in a wheelbarrow.
Aden is among the 295 families that arrived at the camp recently joining the 1,114 families that were already living in the camp and the burden of feeding the burgeoning population continues to become harder by the day for the camp managers.Due to hunger, Aden says, some of his family members would have found it difficult to accompany him to Mogadishu, He says both his eldest son, who is 22 years old, and the youngest, who turned one year recently, are all in dire need of humanitarian aid.
Kenya Arrests 7 Suspected Human Traffickers In Refugee Camp
05 – Source : Associated Press – 222 Words
Kenyan police have arrested seven Somali men for allegedly operating a human trafficking ring at a refugee camp in the country’s east, authorities said Wednesday. The suspects had been smuggling refugees from Dadaab camp to Nairobi, where they used fake documents to leave for Europe and Canada, Northeastern Regional Coordinator Mohamed Saleh said. A court has said police can hold the suspects for 10 days to complete investigations.
Kenya wants to close Dadaab, which hosts more than 200,000 Somali refugees, saying the camp has become a training ground for al-Qaida-linked al-Shabab militants based in neighboring Somalia. The government has offered no proof. A Kenyan court in February blocked the camp’s planned closure in May, calling the order to close it unconstitutional. Al-Shabab has vowed retribution on Kenya for sending troops to Somalia in 2011 to fight the extremists.
Droughts and instability have displaced more than 2 million Somalis in recent decades, with about 900,000 sheltering in regional countries. The U.N. refugee agency says Kenya hosts the highest number, around 324,000. The arrests come nearly a week after Kenya’s security agencies arrested another group of suspected human traffickers on the coast and accused them of facilitating the movement of recruits for the Islamic State group and financing the extremist group. The suspects included a Somali-born man and two Kenyans.
OPINION, ANALYSIS, AND CULTURE
“The window of opportunity is now. The Red Cross says we have less than four months before millions could lose their lives. Are we willing to wait for the ‘F’ word to scare and guilt us into responding? If we do, those decaying animal bones will be the fingers and toes of children, and we can’t say we weren’t warned,”
Drought-stricken Somalia Headed Toward Humanitarian Disaster
05 April – Source: The Toronto Star- 619 Words
Seeing goat and camel carcasses lying in a farmer’s field is an image that still haunts me. The only thing worse than the rancid smell is the realization that children are generally the same weight and stature of the dead animals. Drought has reared its ugly head in Somalia once again, and everywhere you look people are suffering.Somalia is a country of 12 million people and half of the population is in urgent humanitarian need. That’s like having everyone in Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba hungry at this very moment. I saw children so skinny and exhausted they could barely raise their eyes when you talked to them.
Much like the Prairies, northern Somalia is mostly farmland, with sheep and cattle farmers constantly on the move. But we travelled for hours throughout Somaliland and Puntland, and there was eerily few people or animals in sight. Greyed out, barren fields are nothing like the Saskatchewan I grew up in. Arid, broken soil tells a story that is sadly repeating itself.People in Canada may remember the famine that impacted the Horn of Africa in 2011. It was the worst drought in more than half a century and experts say Somalia was the worst hit. More than 250,000 people lost their lives. What people may not know is that more than half of those people were dead before the word “famine” was even declared.
Famine is a tricky word. It’s really a final SOS from the international community with strict stipulations. Ultimately, national governments make the final call but often avoid it because of the stigma. Think about Ethiopia the country suffered its catastrophic famine 30 years ago yet people still associate it with malnourished children and infertile lands. What’s worse is that Somalia is inopportunely competing for coverage and humanitarian attention. The UN has already declared famine in South Sudan while Yemen and northern Nigeria are dealing with devastating droughts. With 20 million people at risk of starvation, it’s the world’s largest humanitarian crisis since the Second World War.
It’s easy to think Canada and Somalia are worlds apart, yet you can barely walk through Rexdale or North York without hearing Somali; you can’t take in a Somalian field without thinking of Canadian farmers; and you can’t overlook the impressive fact that a Somali refugee, Ahmed Hussen, is now our minister of immigration. Our countries are interconnected. So how can we help? The $119 million committed by the Canadian government to the four-affected areas is a start, but it barely makes a dent in the $4.4 billion dollar ask from the UN by July. In a time when the Trump administration is trying to slash funding to foreign aid, Canada has an opportunity to differentiate itself as a humanitarian leader.