February 5, 2015 | Morning Headlines.

Main Story

Measles outbreak in villages near Beledweyne

04 Feb – Source: Radio Ergo – 121 Words

Twelve patients with measles have been admitted to Beledweyne hospital for treatment during January. Beledweyne hospital director Ahmed Mohamed Khalif said most of the patients were under the age of five and came from parts of Hiran region that have no health care services. They included four siblings brought from Indho-ad village, 24 km northeast of Beledweyne. Their mother, Halima Abdiweli, said her children had been sick for a week before she brought them to the hospital. Ahmed blames limited access to immunization in remote rural areas to the increase in cases of measles. He warned that vaccinated children in urban areas were not safe from infection unless people in rural areas were also vaccinated.

Key Headlines

Al-Shabaab burns bus carrying food for Bulo-burte kidnaps driver and his assistant (Radio Bar-Kulan)
Measles outbreak in villages near Beledweyne (Radio Ergo)
One killed as Somali official survives bomb attack – UPDATE (Garowe Online)
Somali regional leaders arrive in Mogadishu (Hiiraan Online)
Allied forces capture Aborrey village in Hiran region (Radio Bar-Kulan)
Somali trader deported over terror links – UPDATE (The Star Kenya)
Instant Network Schools open up a new world for Somali refugees (UNHCR)
Somali shop owner due in court (East Coast Radio/Hiiraan Online)
Somalia says Parliament to vote on new cabinet on Feb. 9 (ABC News)

SOMALI MEDIA

Al-Shabaab burns bus carrying food for Bulo-burte, kidnaps driver and his assistant

04 Feb – Source: Radio Bar-Kulan – 131 Words

Somalia’s Al-Shabaab militant group has seized and set ablaze a bus loaded with food supplies heading to Bulo-burte district in Hiran region. The group also abducted the driver of the bus and his assistant and took them to unknown area. The two were taken hostage as they were driving in an area between Guulweyne village and Bulo-burte district in the region. Witnesses told Bar-kulan the bus was from Mogadishu and was heading to Bulo-burte. The group continues to blockade the roads leading to the district preventing foods and goods to be transported to the town. This is the fifth such incident in which the group set ablaze vehicles ferrying foods and other items to government-controlled towns in Hiran region.

Measles outbreak in villages near Beledweyne

04 Feb – Source: Radio Ergo – 121 Words

One killed as Somali official survives bomb attack – UPDATE

04 Feb – Source: Garowe Online – 137 Words

One person died and several others wounded in a car bomb attack in Mogadishu, officials said WednesdayGarowe Online reports. The bomb which was concealed in a vehicle owned by a government official was detonated by remote control in Karan district. The official escaped unharmed. However, the blast killed a nearby pedestrian. Ahmed Hassan, the district’s commissioner told reporters the blast harmed only civilians. Authorities have launched investigations to apprehend the culprits behind the attack. There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack which carries the hallmarks of Al-Shabaab. The blast occurred as state leaders from Puntland and Jubbaland administrations arrived in Mogadishu for talks with Somalia’s leaders on Wednesday.

Somali regional leaders arrive in Mogadishu

04 Feb – Source: Hiiraan Online – 214 Words

With calls to improve the strained relations between Somalia’s central government and regional administrations, two regional leaders arrived in the Somali capital on Wednesday to hold talk talks with the president. Abdiweli Mohamed Ali, the president of Puntland semi-autonomous region and his Jubbaland administration counterpart Ahmed Madobe are due to meet Somalia’s top leaders as part of efforts aimed at strengthening relations encumbered by recurrent political conflict. Speaking to the reporters at the Mogadishu airport, Puntland leader said that during their week-long stay, their talks would focus on discussing issues of common interest with Somali government leaders. Somalia’s government tries to push for greater collaborations with the regional administrations trying to evade the central government’s influence. Puntland, a semiautonomous region in northern Somalia has its own force, government and income, while Jubbaland, a Kenyan-backed administration based in Kismayo town tries to reduce the government’s influence after political bickering centered on the port’s income with the Somali government. Puntland has recently expressed outrage over the ongoing efforts to form a government-backed regional administration in central Somalia which tries to bring large swathes of the region, including Galkayo, a town which is partially ruled by Puntland under its control. It accused the federal administration of wanting to annex parts of Puntland.

Allied forces capture Aborrey village in Hiran region

04 Feb – Source: Radio Bar-Kulan – 129 Words

Somali government forces backed by African Union Mission in Somalia have on Wednesday taken over control of Aborrey village, 30 km northeast of Bulo-burte district in Hiran region from Al-Shabaab militants. The allied forces captured the area without encountering any resistance from the militant group, according to Abdullahi Barre, one of Bulo’burte’s military officials. Abdullahi said many trucks carrying food and other goods for Bulo-burte were stranded in the area. He said they will help the trucks reach their destination safely. Abdullahi added that they plan to continue the military operation to liberate remaining areas in the region which are still under the control of Al-Shabaab. Al-Shabaab has maintained a blockade on some towns in Hiran in the recent months.

REGIONAL MEDIA

Somali trader deported over terror links – UPDATE

04 Feb – Source: The Star, Kenya – 366 Words

A Somalia national acquitted on Monday of terror charges in Mombasa and re-arrested hours later has been deported. Anti-Terror Police Unit officers raided Aweys Omar’s house at the Likoni Towers overlooking the Likoni crossing channel, just a few hours after his release. Mombasa chief magistrate Maxwel Gicheru had found no evidence linking Aweys and his co-accused Issa Omar to charges of financing terrorism in Kenya. ATPU officers arrested Aweys on December 15 last year at Likoni Towers and detained him at Kilindini police station.

The same officers drawn from Mombasa arrested Aweys at 6pm on Monday. A team of heavily armed General Services Unit officers stormed the flat and cordoned off the area as ATPU officers ransacked thesecond floor house and picked him up for questioning. He was transferred to police headquarters in Mombasa under a heavy guard for further interrogation. Aweys was later airlifted in a private plane to Nairobi for deportation yesterday morning. Speaking to the Star in Mombasa yesterday, his lawyer Jared Magolo protested the “inhumane” deportation without following the due process. “It’s a serious case of injustice. The man has been cleared by the court. He has valid refugee documents. How can he be deported and thrown to Mogadishu?” Magolo said. He said Aweys’s family is contemplating taking legal action against the state.

INTERNATIONAL MEDIA

Instant network Schools open up a new world for Somali refugees

04 Feb – Source: UNHCR – 586 Words

Thirty pairs of fascinated eyes watch the big white screen; fingers glide across new tablet computers. A class of students at the Nasib Secondary School in north-east Kenya’s Dadaab refugee camp complex, is enjoying a history lesson about the Portuguese in Africa. Most have spent their whole life in the arid camps of Dadaab. They have never even visited the closest Kenyan city, Garissa, which is located two hours away by road. But today they are travelling through Africa and the past – online. Nasib is one of 13 schools or vocational training centres in Dadaab that have been connected to the Internet under an education programme launched late last year by the UN refugee agency and the British-based Vodafone telecoms group.

Students at these 13 ICT centres – known as “Instant Network Schools” and powered by solar energy – use Internet-enabled tablets to follow directions, pursue studies and carry out research, while their teachers use interactive whiteboards as a vital teaching aid during lessons. Safaricom, Vodafone’s affiliate in Kenya, is providing Internet connectivity, while telecoms equipment company Huawei has donated 235 tablets to the six primary schools, three secondary schools and four vocational training centres taking part in the programme. “Classes used to be theoretical, now it is much more practical. We can see pictures, we can watch documentaries, we can learn much better,” says Abdi, a student at Nasib Secondary School who fled Somalia in 1992. Around 180,000 children in the five Dadaab refugee camps are of school age (3-17 years), con¬stituting half of the camps’ population. Only around 50 per cent are enrolled in school. But UNHCR constantly strives to improve the quality of education in the camps and persuade more children to enrol.

South Africa: Somali shop owner due in court

04 Feb – Source: East Coast Radio/Hiiraan Online – 191 Words

Magistrate Herman Badenhorst previously postponed the matter so that Yusuf’s status in the country could be established. He is accused of shooting dead Siphiwe Mahori, 14, in Snake Park, Soweto, last Monday. He allegedly fired at a group of people trying to rob his shop. The shooting sparked a wave of looting of foreign-owned shops, which spread from Soweto to Kagiso on the West Rand and Sebokeng in the Vaal, causing several deaths, including a baby who was trampled by a group of people running. Last week four armed men barged into a foreign-owned shop in Nsuze, KZN firing shots at four Ethiopian nationals who were inside the shop at the time. Police say the suspects took an undisclosed amount of cash before they fled the scene. Three counts of attempted murder, assault with intent to do grievous bodily harm and armed robbery have been opened by the police.

Somalia says Parliament to vote on new cabinet on Feb. 9

04 Feb – Source: ABC – 392 Words

Somalia’s new prime minister will try again next week to put a Cabinet in place after the parliament rejected his first lineup amid weeks of political uncertainty that has worried the international community about the war-torn east African country’s return to stability. The country’s representative to the United Nations, Awale Ali Kullane, told the U.N. Security Council on Wednesday that the newly named Cabinet will be presented to the parliament for a vote on Monday. The turmoil at the top of one of Africa’s most fragile states has led the U.N., the European Union, the United States and others to express concern over delays in the implementation of a plan to rebuild Somalia.

Somalia’s new Cabinet of mostly political newcomers was unveiled on Jan. 27 by Prime Minister Omar Abdirashid Ali Sharmarke, weeks after he withdrew his first Cabinet picks in the face of parliament’s opposition. Sharmarke himself was appointed after the parliament ousted his predecessor, Abdiweli Sheikh Ahmed, in December amid a feud between Ahmed and President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud. The U.N. representative to Somalia, Nicholas Kay, told the council that the political infighting could derail the project to help the country form a new constitution and hold an election by September 2016, and that “this year will be decisive in whether Somalia will be a peaceful and unified state.”

SOCIAL MEDIA

CULTURE / OPINION / EDITORIAL / ANALYSIS / BLOGS/ DISCUSSION BOARDS

“I have not seen al-Shabaab tell any truth about the religion. They lied about everything, and every intelligent person has deserted al-Shabaab now. It is only the wretched people and the misled youth like myself that remain.”

Life after al-Shabaab: a former fighter speaks out

03 Feb – Source: Sabahi Online – 991 Words

Like many young men at the time, Mawlid Ali Warsame, now 28, was convinced to join al-Shabaab after Ethiopian troops entered Somalia in 2006 to provide military support to the Somali Transitional Federal Government under Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed. “Many young people joined the fight against [them],” he told Sabahi. “There was a lot of encouragement to convince the public to join the jihad against the Ethiopian troops. I finally decided to join them in the beginning of 2008.” Warsame soon realised, however, that the so-called jihad al-Shabaab wanted him to fight was based on false pretences. It took some time, but in 2012 he was eventually able to escape the group and surrender to government troops. Warsame, who now lives and works in the town of Beled Hawo in Somalia’s Gedo region, said there has been a marked improvement in his life since leaving al-Shabaab and he is satisfied with his current situation. In this exclusive interview, the former fighter spoke with Sabahi about why he joined al-Shabaab, his decision to surrender to the Somali government and his message for the people still under al-Shabaab’s thumb.

Sabahi: What did you do as a member of al-Shabaab?

Mawlid Ali Warsame: I was a fighter. I usually fought in the battles that occurred in Gedo region, although sometimes we were taken to Mogadishu, Bay and Hiran regions. Our job was to ambush and fight Ethiopian and Somali government troops that used to travel between the regions of the country.

Sabahi: Why did you join al-Shabaab in the first place?

Warsame: Honestly, I was told that we would be fighting a holy war at first, and that is what led me to take up arms. However, I later discovered that al-Shabaab’s intention was not a holy war. Their goal was to rule over the country, or to eliminate the people who they thought were against their ideology. I was shocked when we were ordered to kill or torture anyone who was not satisfied with al-Shabaab’s policies. There was a huge difference between the Islamic religion and how we were acting at the time. That led me to consider leaving al-Shabaab.

Sabahi: How has your life changed since your surrender?

Warsame: By God, a lot has changed. I have created for myself a life that was difficult for me to even imagine when I was part of al-Shabaab. I have a wife and children now. I have a business, and my life has started to follow a path that is different from what I was like when I was an al-Shabaab member.