July 13, 2016 | Daily Monitoring Report
Technical Committee To Oversee Banadir Regional Council Election Named
13 July – Source: Hiiraan Online – 82 Words
The Minister of Interior and Federal Affairs has appointed a technical committee to facilitate the formation of the local Banadir region council. The 11-member committee was named in a written directive from the office of the Interior and Federal Affairs Minister, Abdirahman Odawaa, with a clear mandate to supervise inclusive and transparent election process. According to the directive, a copy of which Goobjoog has seen, Mr. Odawaa instructed the Mayor of Mogadishu to cooperate with the new committee in executing its duties.
Key Headlines
- Technical Committee To Oversee Banadir Regional Council Election Named (Hiiraan Online)
- Police Warned Residents Of Warsheikh Against Clan Fighting (Goobjoog News)
- MP Calls For Evacuation Of Somalis In South Sudan (Shabelle News)
- Phone Network Back In Several Towns In Gedo After Two Days Of Blackout (Goobjoog News)
- Ethiopia: METEC Signed MoU With Somalia (Ethiopian News Agency)
- IOM Identifies Over 430000 Internally Displaced In Somalia (Reliefweb)
- Somali Girls Risk Becoming Child Brides If Forced To Leave Dadaab – Malala (The Star)
NATIONAL MEDIA
Police Warned Residents Of Warsheikh Against Clan Fighting
13 July – Source: Goobjoog News – 181 Words
Somali police have warned residents in Warsheikh against fuelling clan clashes days after conflict erupted in the area. Middle Shebelle provincial police commissioner, Khaliif Arfaaye told Goobjoog news that several individuals are fueling the feud between two armed clan militias in the region. “These individuals are providing arms to one of the clans involved in the conflict and they will take the overall responsibility including the deaths of the innocent people and those who fled from their homes,” he said.
The collapse of the central state led to the fragmentation which brought leaders into conflict with other leaders, sometimes from the same clan, vying for control of the same local area and resources. The fighting clan militias have been at loggerheads over a land dispute. The local elders have been trying to mediate between the groups to get a lasting ceasefire, however it has not been successful. Arguments over land use, boreholes and pasture have contributed to fighting among Somali clans who are largely pastoralists.
MP Calls For Evacuation Of Somalis In South Sudan
13 July – Source: Shabelle News – 122 Words
A member of Somali parliament Mohamed Omar Dalha has called on the government to evacuate its citizens in conflict-hit South Sudanese capital, Jubba. “Somali federal government should quickly remove its citizens from Jubba, the capital of South Sudan, with the support of neighboring countries,” said Dalha in an interview with Radio Shabelle.
He added that Somalis in South Sudan are stranded in the renewed fighting in Jubba and they are in dire need of help to evacuation from the war in that country. Hundreds of Somalis, who run businesses in the capital of South Sudan, say they are vulnerable to the clashes continuing in Jubba, asking the government to bring them back home.
Phone Network Back In Several Towns In Gedo After Two Days Of Blackout
13 July – Goobjoog News – 293 Words
Telecommunication companies have resumed their operation after communication services were cut off for two days in several areas including Garbaharey, Burdhubo and Tulobarwaqo towns of Gedo region. Some officials said the companies were asked to stop their operations for security purpose.
“The security of the towns are well and they are under the control our troops. No single Al-Shabaab member in in the towns” said a government officer who declined to mention his name. The administration of two main telecommunication companies in the town, Hortel Inc and Nationlink Telecom have yet to comment on the issue. Independent reports suggest that since Saturday communication lines of several areas under town were cut off.
Somalia’s telecommunication companies have also stopped providing the internet through mobile handsets following last year’s announcement by Al-Shabaab to ban the internet. In an announcement broadcast on 9th January 2014 by a radio station affiliated with the group and later in a statement released to local media, Al-Shabaab said telecommunication companies had 15 days to comply with the order. “Any individual or company that is found not following the order will be considered to be working with the enemy and they will be dealt with in accordance to the Sharia law.” the statement said.
Mobile internet (3G) was introduced to Somalia 2013 and has proven popular. Fibre optics has arrived in Mogadishu in November 2013 and homes are have been connected to it which filled the gap left the internet accession through mobile handsets. Somalia has one of the lowest internet penetration in the world with just over 1 percent of Somalia’s estimated 10 million population connected. Most of those who access the internet in Somalia do so through the many internet cafes that dot the country’s big cities and towns. The ban, Al-Shabab said, has not affected the cafes.
INTERNATIONAL MEDIA
Ethiopia: METEC Signed MoU With Somalia
13 July – Source: Ethiopian News Agency – 203 Words
Metal and Engineering Corporation of Ethiopia (METEC) signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the government of Somalia to build industrial capacity of the latter. The agreement was signed on July 9, 2016. The just concluded MoU, among other things, includes poverty reduction, job creation and strengthening peace and securities. It will also help Somalia to construct manufacturing sites, rehabilitate industrial places and also build its human capacity in the area.
Commenting on the development Somalia’s Minister for Foreign Affairs and Investment Promotion, Abdusalam H Omer, said METEC would enhance Somalia’s rehabilitation in the manufacturing sector. Ethiopia was the best example when it comes to investment and industrial promotion in the region, the agreement would enable Somalia to learn from Ethiopia’s practice, he furthered.
“We have a deep root in history, culture and have unbreakable people to people relationships. So we can build a better and sustainable future”, the Minister added. METEC’s Director General, Major General Kenfe Dagnew, speaking on his part said the MoU would play a crucial role in reinforcing ties between 2 countries. According to Ethiopian News Agency, METEC is expanding its services in the East African region and engaging in the markets of Uganda, Tanzania, Mozambique, Kenya and Rwanda.
IOM Identifies Over 430,000 Internally Displaced In Somalia
12 July – Source: Reliefweb – 283 Words
IOM has identified 430,062 internally displaced persons (IDPs) in seven districts in Somalia after piloting its Displacement Tracking Matrix (DTM) in the country from April to May 2016. The DTM was rolled out across five regions (Lower Juba, Middle Shabelle, Hiiraan, Awdal and Gedo) and seven districts (Afmadow, Balcad, Belet Weyne, Borama, Doolow, Jowhar and Kismayo), comparing data from IDPs and returnees in settlements against data from host communities.
The highest number of IDPs was found in Belet Weyne (132,204) and the fewest in Borama district (14,130). Kismayo district holds the largest number of IDP sites (79), while Borama holds the fewest (1). DTM, which is currently operational in 27 countries, is a suite of tools and methodologies designed to track and analyse human mobility in different displacement contexts, in a continuous manner.
Using DTM, IOM Somalia, in close partnership with the Federal Government of Somalia and other humanitarian partners, aims to improve information management in fluid displacement situations, thereby enhancing evidence-based and timely prioritization in the delivery of humanitarian aid. This will in turn strengthen the coordinated efforts of all humanitarian actors, as well as helping the government to establish a comprehensive system to collect and disseminate data on IDPs by strengthening the capacity of the Somali Disaster Management Agency.
OPINION, ANALYSIS, AND CULTURE
“If they (girls) do not go to school, then they get married at a very early age – and the same would have been my future if I couldn’t go to school,” Malala said.
Somali Girls Risk Becoming Child Brides If Forced To Leave Dadaab – Malala
13 July – Source: The Star – 675 Words
Somali schoolgirls risk losing out on education and becoming child brides if they are forced to leave the world’s largest refugee camp in Kenya. Malala Yousafzai said on Tuesday that this could be their fate if they are forced to move to their war-torn country where there are not enough schools. The Pakistani teenage education activist, who survived a near-fatal attack by the Taliban in 2012, spent her 19th birthday in Dadaab camp, which Kenya wants to close, citing security concerns.
Seated in a classroom in one of Dadaab’s seven secondary schools, Yousafzai told the Thomson Reuters Foundation that the problem is the lack of enough schools. “If they (girls) do not go to school, then they get married at a very early age – and the same would have been my future if I couldn’t go to school,” she said. “You are only just like someone else’s property and I never ever wanted that. I wanted to be myself.”
Kenya, which has been hit by a string of attacks by extremists, aims to send 150,000 of Dadaab’s 342,000 people, who are mostly Somali, home by the end of 2016. Kenya backtracked on an earlier plan announced in May to close the entire camp by November. This followed outcry from rights groups who said much of Somalia was not yet safe for return. Yousafzai was accompanied around the wind-swept, sandy camp by Rahma Hussein Noor, a 19-year-old Somali refugee who was repatriated to Somalia with her family in October but ran away when her father tried to force her to get married.
“I told my father ‘I am not going to marry until I finish my studies’,” Noor said. “He tried to force me but I sneaked (away) from the family.” Hundreds of young refugees crowded into a sports ground to hear Yousafzai, the world’s youngest Nobel Laureate, speak. “We should not ask children who flee their homes to also give up their dreams,” she said, dressed in a pink and blue shalwar kameez and black suede high heeled boots. “The young people in this camp are future leaders on whom we will all depend for peace.”
TOP TWEETS
@Eye_on_Somalia : #goobjoog one person wounded in Waber police station blast in Mogadishu: A bomb has exploded outside… http://bit.ly/2a8h7KA #somalia
@fqdayib : It is an honor to be awarded African Woman of the year. I’m most humbled. #Somalia #Africa #WomenInPolitics
@AndreasNeedham : Malala says Somali refugee girls’ future at risk if #Kenya sends them home. http://news.trust.org/item/
@ISObserver : #Somalia 2 journalists arrested from radio station in Jowhar https://horizon.hozint.com/
@lasoco : Al-Shabaab leader accuses Turkey of ruining Somalia’s economy – Africanews http://j.mp/29QgeqE #Somalia
@amisomsomalia : “The situation in #Somalia requires us to engage fully & in a more robust manner to be able to support AMISOM’s mandate” ~ Mr. Olabisi Dare
IMAGE OF THE DAY
Mohamed Omar Arte, the Deputy Prime Minister of Somalia, and participants pose for a group photograph at the Somalia Maritime Code Stakeholders’ Forum Conference in Mogadishu.The conference was sponsored by the United Nations Assistance Mission in Somalia (UNSOM) together with the International Maritime Organization (IMO).
Photo: UNSOM