January 20, 2016 | Daily Monitoring Report
Somaliland Launches Crackdown On ‘Illegal Foreigners’
20 January – Source: Hiiraan Online – 163 Words
Police in the breakaway northern Somalia region of Somaliland have rounded up dozens of illegal foreign workers on Tuesday, in what appeared to be the start of a nationwide crackdown, officials said. Authorities said that the crackdown would affect foreigners who stay or work in Somaliland illegally.It’s unclear what prompted the move, however, witnesses in Hargeisa, Somaliland’s capital, told Hiiraan Online that the raids largely targeted Ethiopian nationals. By Tuesday afternoon the police had reportedly rounded up more than 50 people.
Police officials also urged locals to provide information on illegal foreigners.As a result of the crackdown, some of the foreigners have checked into immigration department offices to present their legal papers to justify their stay in Somaliland. Affected foreigners have expressed concerns over the prompt crackdown by the government, which they lamented did not give them a grace period to plan for their exit to their respective countries.No comment could be reached from Ethiopia’s Somaliland mission on the development. However, Ethiopia maintains a warm diplomatic relationship with Somaliland.
Key Headlines
- Somaliland Launches Crackdown On ‘Illegal Foreigners’ (Hiiraan Online)
- Somali Bantu And Galjecel Tribes Boycott Jowhar Conference (Radio Dalsan)
- Federal Government Forces Close Down Main Roads In Mogadishu (Goobjoog News)
- Ethiopians Somalis Flooding Into Yemen Despite Conflict: UN (AFP)
- Uhuru Summons KDF Bosses Over Raid (Daily Nation)
- Expatriates Return To Help Rebuild Somalia (CCTV)
- Four Most-Wanted Terror Suspects Killed In Malindi (Daily Nation)
- Somalia Fails To Agree On System For President’s Election (The East African)
NATIONAL MEDIA
Somali Bantu And Galjecel Tribes Boycott Jowhar Conference
20 January – Source: Radio Dalsan – 146 words
New reports from the capital town of Middle Shabelle region, Jowhar, indicate that representatives of members of the Somali Bantu and Galjecel tribes have walked out of the ongoing talks on the establishment of a regional state between Hiiraan and Middle Shabelle regions. Members of the two tribes are among those who reside in Middle Shabelle region. Their representatives are said to have stormed out of the meeting in protest of skewed representation of delegates at the conference.
In the past couple of days, the tribes in Hiiraan and the Middle Shabelle regions have been pouring in Jowahar town to attend the formation of a joint autonomous state for the two regions. Somalia has four other regional autonomous states, which were all formed after the collapse of last effective central government of Somalia in 1991.
Federal Government Forces Close Down Main Roads In Mogadishu
20 January – Source: Goobjoog News – 85 Words
The security and the Somali National Army forces of the Federal Government of Somalia have closed all the main roads of the city including the busy Makka Al Mukaramah road, one of the busiest streets in the capital, Mogadishu. Public vehicles and pedestrians were this morning forced to use narrower roads in the city which led to heavy traffic snarl up. The reason behind the closure of the roads is unclear but sources say it is one of the government efforts to beef up security in the capital.
INTERNATIONAL MEDIA
Ethiopians, Somalis Flooding Into Yemen Despite Conflict: UN
20 January – Source: Agence France Presse – 377 Words
Nearly 100,000 Ethiopians and Somalis last year travelled by boat to Yemen despite the conflict raging there, the UN said Tuesday, warning about the dangers of the journey: “Clearly it’s extremely dangerous, both for the journey and for what they meet inside Yemen,” UN refugee agency spokesman Adrian Edwards told AFP.
His warning came less than two weeks after 36 people drowned trying to reach Yemen on January 8. Ninety-five people meanwhile were reported drowned trying to make the journey last year, making it the second deadliest year recorded to date on that route, Edwards said. The high death toll reflects the large numbers still trying to reach Yemen, even as the country has collapsed into a brutal civil war.
According to the latest UNHCR data, 92,446 people arrived in Yemen by boat last year – a full two-thirds of them since the conflict in the country escalated dramatically in March. That marks one of the highest annual totals in more than a decade, UNHCR said. Nearly 90 percent of the arrivals, 82,268, were from Ethiopia, while the remainder were Somalis, it added.Edwards described the figures as “disturbing”, lamenting that “people still seem to be uninformed about the severity of the situation in Yemen.” Some 6,000 people – around half of them civilians – have been killed in Yemen since conflict there escalated last March with the start of a Saudi-led bombing campaign against rebels, according to UN numbers.
More than 2.5 million others have become internally displaced and another 168,000 have fled Yemen since March, the UN said. Edwards said smugglers were clearly organising the boatloads of people headed to the war-torn country and suggested the information they had and were sharing about the situation on the ground was not completely accurate.”People continue to arrive despite unprecedented escalated internal conflict in Yemen, and tragically more people continue to lose their lives trying to cross the sea in overcrowded, unseaworthy boats,” Edwards told reporters in Geneva.
Uhuru Summons KDF Bosses Over Raid
20 January – Source: Daily Nation – 851 Words
President Uhuru Kenyatta on Tuesday summoned military generals to Mombasa as Kenya Defence Forces intensified counter-attacks against Al-Shabaab who raided a KDF camp in Somalia on Friday. The Army, Airforce and Navy commanders — led by Chief of Kenya Defence Forces Samson Mwathethe — flew to the Coast for the meeting with the President at State House, Mombasa.
After the high-level security talks, the President addressed the nation in a televised address where he again warned that those who attacked the KDF camp at El Adde in the Gedo region, northwestern Somalia, would be tracked down and punished: “We are well aware peace and security have their price,” the President said in his address. “Our job is to minimise the risk to our people. I’m proud to say that our forces are ready to do their duty. Their bravery is undimmed and for this, we, as a nation, are grateful to all of them.”
Expatriates Return To Help Rebuild Somalia
20 January – Source: CCTV – Video: 02:27 Mins
Four Most-Wanted Terror Suspects Killed In Malindi
20 January – Source: Daily Nation – 98 Words
Anti-Terrorism Police Unit on Wednesday morning killed four most-wanted terrorists after a shootout at Kwachocha in Malindi. Among those killed was Suleiman Mohammed Awadh, a most-wanted terrorism suspect. Police had put a Sh2 million bounty on his head.The suspected terrorists hurled a grenade at the officers, who raided their house at 2.30am, but no one was injured.Three other suspected terrorists escaped.The police officers recovered a Barreta pistol, five hand grenades, several SIM cards and mobile phones.Police had in April released pictures of nine men, among them Awadh, wanted following the Garissa University College attack.
OPINION, ANALYSIS, AND CULTURE
“The 4.5 clan-based model – four major clans plus a cluster of five small clans – has been criticised for being susceptible to manipulation and a source of inter-clan divisions that has seen a high turnover of prime ministers,”
Somalia Fails To Agree On System For President’s Election
20 January – Source: The East African – 541 Words
Somalia is running out of time to choose a system for the election of the president after a meeting to agree on the model, between a geographical and clan-based one, ended in a stalemate. After three days of haggling in Kismayu last week, the Somalia National Consultative Forum (NCF) failed to pick a model which now poses a major challenge to the United Nations that had given the country up to end of January to reach a consensus before it can start to mobilise resources to help the country conduct elections in September this year.
In December, an NCF meeting in Mogadishu resolved under the “Mogadishu Declaration” for a collegiate system combining the traditional clan-based system and geographical voting (five regional assemblies). However, the meeting in Kismayu saw the emergence a third option which would involve electing MPs who would later vote for the president.Puntland and Jubbaland leaders prefer elections based on the 18 districts while leaders from Galmudug and South-western favour the clan-based formula that was used to elect President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud in September 2012. Even those who favoured districts could not agree among themselves whether to conduct the nominations based on the existing five federal states or the 18 districts.
TOP TWEETS
@MogadishuImages:Girls are good at math too. Elementary schoolgirls are encouraged to be more involved in math.#mogadishu #Somalia
@XHNews:Kenyans mourn soldiers killed in S. #Somalia attack as search, recovery operation continues http://xhne.ws/40u9G
@BBCAfrica:Can al-Shabab be defeated? Outgoing head of the UN mission in #Somalia talks to our editor @mary_harperhttp://bbc.in/209yMVP
@SalahOsman0:Good Morning 11th convocation ceremony of SIMAD UNIVERSITYin #Mogadishu Peace z a key factor 4 development #Somalia
@OCHASom:In #Somalia, some 1.9m ppl may die of preventable diseases due to lack of access to primary healthcare
IMAGE OF THE DAY
Graduands attend the 11 convocation ceremony of Simad University in Mogadishu.
Photo : Simad University