January 22, 2018 | Morning Headlines
Somali President Sacks Mogadishu Mayor, Names Replacement
21 January – Source: Reuters – 209 Words
Somali President Mohamed Abdullahi sacked the mayor of the capital Mogadishu and appointed his information minister to replace him on Sunday. The president, in a decree, named Abdirahman Omar Osman as the new mayor, replacing Taabit Abdi Mohamed. The president’s office did not give a reason for Mohamed’s dismissal. Local media reported on Saturday that Mohamed and Prime Minister Hassan Ali Khaire did not get on, but it was unclear whether that was the reason for Mohamed’s removal from the post. “After deliberation with the prime minister and interior minister, the Somali president appointed Abdirahman Omar Osman as the new mayor,” a statement on the Somali government website said.
Mogadishu residents said security forces had entered the mayor’s office on Saturday night and took control of it. They also closed most roads in the city and they were still blocked on Sunday.The information minister could not be immediately reached for comment. Somalia has been mired by security problems since 1991 when warlords toppled dictator Mohamed Siad Barre. Backed by the African Union force AMISOM, the government is struggling to defeat an Islamist insurgency by the al Shabaab group. Al Shabaab wants to topple the government and establish its own rule based on its interpretation of sharia law.
Key Headlines
- Somali President Sacks Mogadishu Mayor Names Replacement (Reuters)
- US-backed Somalia Commandos Kill 4 Al-Shabaab Extremists During Raid (Somali Update)
- Somalia Orders Foreign Health Workers To Register (Radio Dalsan)
- Somali Army Convoy Targeted In Landmine In Mogadishu (Radio Shabelle)
- Al Shabaab Destroy Hormuud Mast In Elwak (The Star)
- Bangkok’s Somali Refugees Persecuted And Living In Fear (Al Jazeera)
NATIONAL MEDIA
US-backed Somalia Commandos Kill 4 Al-Shabaab Extremists During Raid
21 January – Source: Somali Update – 364 Words
Somali and U.S. commandos stormed a camp of Al-Shabaab extremist fighters in an overnight raid, killing at least four of the fighters and rescuing dozens of child conscripts, a Somali intelligence official said on Friday. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media, said special forces raided the camp in Jame’o village in Middle Shabelle region. A local commander was among those killed, he said. A second official confirmed the raid, which was carried out with the support of helicopters that later evacuated the young recruits.
Human Rights Watch earlier in the week accused Al-Shabaab of forcefully recruiting hundreds of children in recent months. The recruitment of children is a long-standing practice of the al-Qaida-linked group which faces growing military pressure across south and central Somalia. Thirty boys were rescued in the overnight raid, Somalia’s information minister, Abdirahman Omar Osman, told The Associated Press. “Al-Shabaab once again demonstrated their barbarity and their complete disregard for human rights,” the minister said. “The group uses these indoctrination camps to brainwash young men and force them to conduct attacks and suicide bombings.” He said Somalia’s military was making “significant progress” in retaking territory from the extremist group.
Also on Friday, the U.S. military said it had carried out an airstrike in Somalia that killed four members of the Al-Shabaab extremist group. A statement from the U.S. Africa Command said the strike was carried out on Thursday about 50 kilometers (31 miles) northwest of the port city of Kismayo. The statement said no civilians were killed. The U.S. military carried out more than 30 drone strikes last year in the long-chaotic Horn of Africa nation after President Donald Trump approved expanded military efforts against Al-Shabaab.
The extremist group was blamed for the October truck bombing in Somalia’s capital, Mogadishu, that killed 512 people. Thursday’s U.S. airstrike was the first one since early this month that killed two Al-Shabaab extremists and destroyed a vehicle carrying explosives, “preventing it from being used against the people in Mogadishu.” Last year, Somalia’s Somali-American president vowed that his government would drive the extremist group out of the country.
Somalia Orders Foreign Health Workers To Register
21 January – Source: Radio Dalsan – 143 Words
All foreign health workers in Somalia have been given a one month notice to register with the government in a move to ensure quality delivery of medical services. In a letter dated January 17 2018, and directed to privately owned Health Centres in the country. The ministry stated the concerned to heed to the directive which was meant to assess the quality of foreign health officials.
All foreigners who intend to work in the country will now be required to first contact the Health Ministry before arrival in the country. Foreign health workers are required to submit a complete bio data, originals and copies of academic certificates, certificates from boards of respective fields, passport and certificate of Good Conduct. This comes at a time when the Farmajo government is putting strict measures to curb foreigners working in the country without valid working documents.
Somali Army Convoy Targeted In Landmine In Mogadishu
21 January – Source: Radio Shabelle – 103 Words
A landmine blast has ripped through a Somali army convoy in the capital Mogadishu on Sunday morning, causing an unspecified number of casualties. The explosion took place near former Gaheyr University compound, on the industrial road in the capital after a remote-controlled roadside bomb struck a vehicle carrying Somali forces.
In the aftermath of the attack, government troops cordoned off the scene and carried out an investigation into the incident, but, no arrest has been reported. No group has claimed responsibility for the bomb attack, which was the latest in series of IED blasts in the seaside city in the past few months.
INTERNATIONAL MEDIA
Al Shabaab Destroy Hormuud Mast In Elwak
21 January – Source: The Star – 238 Words
Al Shabaab militants have destroyed a Hormuud communication mast located on the Somalia border town of Elwak. Police say the militants were retaliating to earlier reports of locals communicating with Somalia security forces and the Kenya Amisom troops. According to police sources, the AMISOM forces were collecting information from the residents in preparation for a medical camp that was set to take place in ELWAK next week.
The terrorists attacked the mask at 2 am on Saturday. “The troops were just asking about the number of children available, the common ailments among the elderly and the number of expectant mothers but the militants accused us sharing information about their whereabouts.” an Elwak elder said. The locals are aggrieved by the militants who in December also destroyed a water well in Lafey.
The well was sunk by the Kenya military troops to help them access water. Many districts in Somalia are currently facing drought as the militants continue to make the lives of Somalis unbearable. The terror outfit has in the recent past denied children and women access to humanitarian aid and even executed whoever they suspected of not cooperating with them. On January 2, four security officers were killed in an attack in Mandera. Two police reservists and an AP died instantly while another KPR was killed while being rushed to the hospital. A senior police officer said the attackers waylaid the cops along the Elwak – Kitulo road.
OPINION, ANALYSIS AND CULTURE
“With access heavily restricted, accounts of abysmal conditions are known only from the testimonies of former detainees released on a now-defunct bail system that was operated at the discretion of immigration officials until mid-2016. “I was in a cell with 120 men, only three times as big as this room,” Abdirahim explains, gesturing to his cramped apartment of 350 square feet.”
Bangkok’s Somali Refugees Persecuted And Living In Fear
20 January – Source: Al Jazeera – 1189
I’ve never experienced cold like this,” says RK, a 19-year-old Somali refugee, as he sits in a downtown Bangkok alley one December morning. It is 20 degrees, and opposite is the Suan Phlu Immigration Detention Center, an office building concealing thousands of undocumented migrants. It is a stone’s throw from Bangkok’s gregarious tourist district, and RK’s wife and nine-month-old daughter are being held inside. “They kicked my door down and took my family when I was away,” RK says, referring to an immigration raid at his home three months earlier, as part of a crackdown on undocumented migrants.
The UN’s refugee agency, UNHCR, told Al Jazeera that Bangkok is home to a growing community of approximately 4,500 refugees and 2,000 asylum-seekers from more than 50 countries. Regarded as “illegal aliens” under Thai law, RK’s wife and daughter face a period of indefinite detention. They will only be released by relocation to a third country, a lengthy process. An undocumented migrant and former detainee himself, RK relies upon volunteers to relay messages of hope on his behalf. An exact breakdown of the origins of refugee communities in Thailand is not available.
But compared with Europe, Thailand is in seen as being in easier reach and more hospitable among Pakistani, Somali, Iraqi, Palestinian and Syrian migrants and refugees – all of whom flock to the Asian country. These were among the considerations that drew RK to the city. Three years earlier, when he was 16 years old, he fled Mogadishu, the Somali capital, after his father was killed in an al-Shabab car bomb attack. Fearing for his life, RK’s family paid smugglers $2,000 to escort him on a flight to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, one of the few countries where Somali citizens do not require visas.
From there, he was transported 1,500km in the back of a truck on a three-day journey up the Malay Peninsula to Bangkok – home to UNHCR’s Regional Office for Southeast Asia, and a city from where he could apply for asylum. “They told me it would be safe to live and work here until I got accepted into another country,” says RK, talking of his smugglers. But misinformation and false hope are the currencies that sustain the smuggling industry, with the reality on the ground remaining far bleaker. Thailand is not party to the 1951 Refugee Convention, and Thailand’s Immigration Act does not distinguish between refugees, asylum seekers and illegal immigrants. Consequently, all undocumented migrants remain at the mercy of immigration officials who regularly arrest and incarcerate anyone unable to produce valid visas.
According to Human Rights Watch (HRW), this approach is central to the Thai government’s immigration policy informed by the magnet effect; a belief that making conditions as inhospitable as possible for refugees and asylum seekers will deter future arrivals. As a result, they face crippling government-imposed restrictions on access to healthcare and education. Most debilitating is the inability to earn money legally. This consigns them to a life subsisting on irregular handouts from increasingly stretched refugee support networks. UNHCR in Bangkok told Al Jazeera that due to financial shortfalls, the agency uses panels to assess the needs of refugees and “target assistance on the most vulnerable”.