March 28, 2018 | Daily Monitoring Report
National Security Council Meeting Set For Baidoa Today Cancelled
28 March – Source: Goobjoog News – 221 Words
The National Security Council meeting which was scheduled for today in Baidoa has been cancelled amid an ongoing political stalemate in the country, Goobjoog News has learnt. Impeccable sources told Goobjoog News the meeting, which is a follow-up of the February one in Mogadishu has been put off ‘due to unknown circumstances’. The meeting which brings together the Federal and State leadership was expected to discuss resource sharing between the two levels of government in addition to the electoral model for the 2020 elections.
National Electoral Commission (NEC) chairperson Halima Yarey confirmed the cancellation to Goobjoog News. “I was supposed to present the electoral model during the meeting in Baidoa but I have learnt it has been cancelled.” South West State information minister Hassan Mohamed said the meeting was put off till further notice. “I can confirm to the meeting has been cancelled and postponed but I have no more information about the future dates.” Goobjoog News has since established the electoral body NEC has settled for Proportional Representation model.
During the February 6-10 in Mogadishu, the leaders set March 28 for the next meeting. “The leaders have agreed the next meeting will be in March 28, 2018 in Baidoa,” a communique from the meeting read in part. “The leaders will agree on resource sharing formula and the electoral model for 2020 elections.”
Key Headlines
- National Security Council Meeting Set For Baidoa Today Cancelled (Goobjoog News)
- Somali Regional MP Shot Dead In Mogadishu (Shabelle News)
- Conference On Violent Extremism Kicks Off In Mogadishu (Halbeeg News)
- UN Expects Sharp Rise In Somalis Seeking To Leave Dadaab (Daily Nation)
- Somalia Calls For UN Action Against UAE Base In Berbera (Al-Jazeera News)
- Bardera Vegetable Glut Brings Relief To Households And Pain To Small Farmers (Radio Ergo)
NATIONAL MEDIA
Somali Regional MP Shot Dead In Mogadishu
28 March – Source: Shabelle News – 134 Words
A member of Southwest regional parliament was shot dead outside her home in Shibis district of Mogadishu on Tuesday evening, by suspected Al-Shabaab attackers. A witness, who asked to remain anonymous has confirmed to Radio Shabelle, that a female regional MP Ruqiya Abshir Noor, was fatally shot and rushed to the hospital.
Local police authorities said Ms. Noor was immediately taken to Medina hospital where she succumbed to severe wounds, according to the medical officials. Mr. Amin Sheikh, a fellow lawmaker has condemned the death the female MP, and called on the security agencies of the Somali Federal government to bring the perpetrators to justice. No group has so far claimed the responsibility for the assassination of the Southwest State legislator, but Al-Shabaab previously carried out such targeted killings in the capital.
Conference On Violent Extremism Kicks Off In Mogadishu
27 March – Source: Halbeeg News – 205 Words
A meeting to finalize the development of Somalia’s National Action Plan on Preventing and Countering Violent Extremism (PCVE) opened in Mogadishu on Tuesday. The Conference which convened religious leaders, youth, government officials and civil society groups is expected to review, provide capacity building and strengthen the key stakeholders to meaningfully contribute to the PCVE exercise.
Speaking at the opening of the workshop, Somali Deputy Prime Minister, Mahdi Mohamed Guled has stressed the role of religious leaders in the fight against Violent Extremism. “The clerics can use their vital position in the community to fight extremism. The religious leaders are the backbone of the society, therefore they play very important role to annihilate this menace,” said Mr. Guled.
Somali Cleric Association Chairman, Sheikh Bashir Mohamed Salad called on the participants of the meeting to collaborate and come up with a comprehensive approach to end the extremism. Mr. Salad said the fundamental issue needed to be addressed is means to overcome and eradicate violent extremism and its impacts on the youth and other members of the society. The meeting organized by Federal Government will continue for two days, at the end of the meeting, the participants are expected to issue communiqué on this issue of violent extremism.
INTERNATIONAL MEDIA
UN Expects Sharp Rise In Somalis Seeking To Leave Dadaab
28 March – Source: Daily Nation – 351 Words
The United Nations refugee agency predicts that many more Somalis in the Dadaab camps will seek repatriation to their homeland in the coming months. That forecast is based on the reopening of the road from the Liboi border station in Kenya to Dhobley, a town inside Somalia. The route had been closed for 10 months due to insecurity and heavy rains, with returns having been carried out solely by air to Kismayu and Mogadishu during that time.
“Road convoys are the preferred mode of transport for many refugees, and it is therefore expected that the number of refugees expressing interest to return will significantly increase,” the UN agency said on Monday. During February, 1,315 refugees were assisted in voluntarily returning to Somalia, the agency noted. That brought the total number of Somalis who have taken part in the three-year-old supported return programme to 75,157.
Dadaab’s population stood at 231,103 at the end of February. At its peak in 2011, the five-camp complex hosted twice as many Somalis and other East Africans, making it the world’s largest concentration of refugees. The Kenyan government announced three years ago that it would shut down Dadaab because the camps were infiltrated by Al-Shabaab fighters.
A High Court judge blocked the closure last year. The UN, meanwhile, pledged to move ahead expeditiously with the voluntary return initiative that it had devised along with the Kenya and Somalia governments in 2013. While attention has been focused on the 26-year-old Dadaab complex, an even larger total number of refugees — 253,000 — are currently living in the Kakuma camps and in Nairobi. And their ranks are steadily growing as violence and hunger spur an exodus from South Sudan.
The UN agency lacks the resources to provide adequate nutrition to refugees in all the Kenyan camps. It has so far received only seven percent of the $189 million sought from donor countries this year. “Food assistance remains far from meeting recommended daily intake of the population and leads to deteriorating nutrition status especially among young children and women,” the UN refugee agency said on Monday.
Somalia Calls For UN Action Against UAE Base in Berbera
27 March – Source: Al-Jazeera News – 339 Words
Somalia has urged the United Nations Security Council to take action against the construction of a United Arab Emirates (UAE) military base in Somaliland. Speaking at the Security Council on Tuesday, Abukar Osman, Somalia’s ambassador to the UN, said the agreement between Somaliland and the UAE to establish the base in the port city of Berbera is a “clear violation of international law”.
Osman also called on the Security Council to “take the necessary steps” to “put an end to these actions”. “The Federal Government of Somalia strongly condemns these blatant violations, and reaffirms that it will take the necessary measures deriving from its primary responsibility to defend the inviolability of the sovereignty and the unity of Somalia,” he added.
The UAE began construction of the base last year, under an agreement with officials in Somaliland, a northern region of Somalia that self-declared independence from the latter in 1991 following a civil war. Earlier this month, the UAE said it would train Somaliland security forces, including the police and the military, as part of the deal.
The UAE is simultaneously investing in developing the port itself, which is strategically located close to Yemen, where UAE troops have been fighting as part of a Saudi-led military coalition against Houthi rebels since 2015. DP World, the world’s fourth largest port operator based in Dubai, said in 2016 it would invest as much as $442m to develop the Berbera port. The deal also includes the government of Ethiopia, which took a 19 percent stake in the port.
Osman’s statements come after Somalia’s parliament voted to ban DP World from operating in the country and rejected the development venture. Somaliland, however, said the vote would not impact the agreement. DP World has been facing several problems in its contracts in the region. Last month, neighbouring Djibouti terminated its deal with the company to run a container terminal. The government of Djibouti said that the contract to run the Doraleh Container Terminal (DCT) between the two parties was damaging the sovereignty of the country.
OPINION, ANALYSIS & CULTURE
“Due to high prices of food [in the drought] I was spending all my income on food for the family. I sometimes also needed to buy food on credit. But since the prices dropped we can use our money to buy other things as well,” Said said.
Bardera Vegetable Glut Brings Relief To Households And Pain To Small Farmers
27 March – Source: Radio Ergo – 448 Words
A bumper harvest of vegetables in Bardera, in southern Somalia’s Gedo region, has brought relief to local households on one hand but at the same time great losses to small-scale farmers, who had not planned around a fall in food prices. Local farmers invested heavily in fuel for generators and irrigation pipes to channel as much water as they could from the depleted river Juba, which has run dry in places last year, when they began planting their crops three months ago.
The chairman of the farmers’ association in Bardera, Mohamed Abdirahman Matow, told Radio Ergo that 350 generators were in use on around 10,000 hectares of farmland in the area. The farmers expected they would manage to get a reasonable harvest despite the long drought, enough to make a good return on their investments in irrigation. The river rose this month, however, after rainfall in the Ethiopian highlands that is not normally expected in March.
There is now a glut of fresh produce from numerous farms that has swamped the local markets. Much of the excess produce cannot be transported elsewhere before it goes bad.“I thought I would become rich overnight, but I still owe back all the expenses I incurred,” said Abdullahi Abdirizak, one of the famers bringing his produce to the local market.
Abdullahi planted eight of his 10 hectares in Hagar-bulle village, 13 km from Bardera, with tomatoes, bananas, watermelons, lemons and pumpkins. A10-litre bucket of tomatoes that he would have expected to sell for 175,000 Somali shillings ($7.6) is now selling for just 20,000 shillings (less than $1). Similarly, a bucket of lemons has fallen from 60,000 to 23,000 shillings ($2.6 to $1). “There has never been a worse day in the market!” Abdullahi complained.
TOP TWEETS
@Goobjoognews: SOMALIA’S LOVE for imported milk despite annual production valued at $3.3bn.
@DalsanFM: Leader of Majority in the #Kenya Parliament@HonAdenDuale backs recent revelation by the country’s intel chief Noordin Haji that #Jubbaland State of #Somalia was created by Kenya to form a bufferzone to secure it’s borders.
@Abukar_Arman: Abukar Arman Retweeted Abdirahman O. OsmanCVE has been a bad news program for Muslims. Somalis in particular https://foreignpolicyblogs.
@ozcrimenews: Have posted various stories about Sudanese visiting Sudan for holiday’s & Somali’s doing trips also. But#Australia continues a domestic resettlement program at heavy tax payer cost. The ‘Somalia Australia Council’ /aware of people returning. #Melbourne #Auspol #3aw693 #apexgang
@MoPIED_Somalia: REINTEG project on ‘Facilitating Return through Laying Foundations for Somalia.’ Steering Committee meeting is going on Mogadishu led by @MoPIED_Somalia,@EU_in_Somalia and @IOM_Somalia
@DalsanFM: #Somalia Government, @EU_in_Somalia and@IOM_Somalia have launched a project to help approximately 1,000 Somali migrants stranded in foreign countries reintegrate once they have returned to the country- IOM Somalia.
@AJENews: Somalia’s ambassador to the UN says UAE’s actions in Somaliland “violate international law”.
@Goobjoognews: #Somalia: The average crop production between 1980 and 1990 stood at half a million tons but that number has reduced to an average of 280,000 tons as of 2015.
IMAGE OF THE DAY
A group of young Somalis who were stranded overseas are received at Aden Abdulle International Airport in Mogadishu by government officials.
Photo: @DalsanFM