May 1, 2017 | Daily Monitoring Report
German Foreign Affairs Minister Lands In Mogadishu
01 May – Source: Dhacdo.com -100 Words
The German Minister for Foreign Affairs, Sigmar Gabriel has arrived in Mogadishu for an official visit. The plane carrying the Minister touched down at the Aden Adde International Airport and he was recieved his Somali counterpart, Yusuf Garaad Omar. The visit by the Minister was not announced previously.The Minister was at the time of writing holding meetings with Somali government officials led by the Prime Minister, Hassan Ali Khayre. Germany is among countries supporting the Somali government in the training of the Somali National Army (SNA). Most foreign dignitaries who visit Somalia do not normally leave the airport.
Key Headlines
- German Foreign Affairs Minister Lands In Mogadishu(Dhacdo.com)
- Somalia To Commemorate Labour Day (Goobjoog News)
- As Ramadan Approaches PM Says Mogadishu Security First Priority Of Government(Somali Update)
- Former Information Ministry Director Denies Allegations(Radio Mustaqbal)
- Indonesian Navy Foils Attempt To Smuggle Eight Somali Refugees(The Star Online)
- UAE Doctors Offer 2000 Volunteer Hours To Serve Somali Poor (Emirates News Agency)
- The “Good Pirates” Of Somalia (Salon)
NATIONAL MEDIA
Somalia To Commemorate Labour Day
01 May – Source : Goobjoog News – 157 Words
Somali workers on Monday, May 1 will turn out to celebrate the International Workers Day popularly known as Labour Day. The ceremony organized by Federation of Somali Trade Unions (FESTU) in Mogadishu and the event is expected to be attended by ministers, MPs, some members of trade union leaders and civil society. T
Irregular payments for Somali army and workers has long been a major concern that sparked rage and grumbling among government workers who had to bear brunt of the pay crisis, with the bulk of them had to stay almost a year without salaries. In Somalia, the civil service commission barely exists in the country where state workers often complain of abuses by their superiors; with many others often avoid expressing their discontents in public, leaving their fate at the mercy of their bosses.
As Ramadan Approaches, PM Says Mogadishu Security First Priority Of Government
01 May – Source : Somali Update – 227 Words
Somali Prime Minister Hassan Ali Khaire on Sunday met with a unit of National Security and Intelligence Agency (NISA) Forces intended to secure the country’s capital, Mogadishu amid recurrent attacks by the militant group Al-Shabab. The Prime Minister accompanied by the Security Minister Mohamed Abukar Islow and the new NISA Commander Abdullahi Mohamed Ali, addressed the Mogadishu security unit in a camp in the south of the capital. “Security of the capital is the first priority of the government as well as restoring the law and order” the Prime Minister Khaire told the NISA unit.”Your country needs you today. Bringing security and ensuring governance depends on the quality of our security personnel” PM Khaire added. He urged the public to work closely with the security forces to make Mogadishu neighborhoods safe from Al-Shabab attacks and assassinations.
According to the new NISA Commander Abdullahi Mohamed Ali, the new unit will be part of government strategy to restore security of the capital city.As Ramadan month approaches, the new government in Villa Somalia is struggling to tackle attacks and threats posed by the terror group which continues to target both government and civilian in Mogadishu and major towns under the control of the government, as the 22,000 African Union forces (AMISOM) are preparing to handover security task to the Somali security forces at the end of 2018.
Former Information Ministry Director Denies Allegations
01 May- Source: Radio Mustaqbal-95 Words
The former director at the Ministry of Information , Abdirisaq Yusuf (Bahlawi) has commented on a letter which is circulating in social media that calls for his arrest over corruption charges.The former director who was accused by the new Minister for Information, Abdirahman Osman Yarisow of corruption has denied the allegations made by the Minister.He called for independent investigation over the matter saying he can only be arrested if genuine evidence is brought forward by the accusing parties. His comment comes after the Attorney General’s office issued a letter
INTERNATIONAL MEDIA
Indonesian Navy Foils Attempt To Smuggle Eight Somali Refugees
01 May – Source : The Star Online – 194 Words
The Indonesian Navy has thwarted an attempt to smuggle eight Somali citizens using an Indonesian boat from Malaysia through Bagan Asahan waters in North Sumatra. “The navy patrol captured an unnamed vessel at around 1.30am on Friday,” Head of public relations and the Directorate General of Immigration at the Ministry of Justice and Human Rights Agung Sampurno said on Saturday, as quoted by kompas.com. Agung said the captain and crew had jumped into the mangrove forest carrying the passports of eight Somali refugees who had allegedly come from Malaysia. Agung also said that the Merauke Immigration Office on April 16, had prevented the smuggling of five Senegalese nationals into Papua New Guinea through a traditional exit route from Sota, Papua.
According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, there were 150,845 refugees and asylum seekers in Malaysia as of March 2017. There are about 14,000 refugees in Indonesia, residing at immigration detention centres, community houses and elsewhere. “Indonesia is located between a refugee-receiving country, Malaysia, and a country that has ratified the UN convention on refugees, Australia, which makes Indonesia vulnerable to getting refugees from both countries,” Agung said.
UAE Doctors Offer 2000 Volunteer Hours To Serve Somali Poor
30 April – Source : Emirates News Agency – 355 Words
An elite of UAE doctors have offered to provide two thousand hours of life-saving medical care to poor Somali children and elderly patients, by working in the Emirati-Somali Mobile Hospital that currently offers its humanitarian, diagnostic, therapeutic and preventative services to poor people in the Somali city of Hargeisa. This is in keeping with the directives of President His Highness Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan for 2017 to be the Year of Giving, coinciding with the “For You Somalia” campaign, as a joint humanitarian initiative of the Zayed Giving Initiative, Dar Al Ber Society, Sharjah Charity House and the Saudi-German Hospital, under the supervision of the Emirates Volunteering Centre.
The Emirati heart surgeon, Dr. Adel Al Shamri, CEO of the Zayed Giving Initiative, stressed that the initiative aims to attract citizen doctors, training and preparing them for local and international volunteer work to serve poor patients and reduce the suffering of children and the elderly, in keeping with the humanitarian spirit of the founding father Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan, and as an extension of the bridges of goodness and giving by the children of the UAE.
He pointed out that under the programmes of the Zayed Giving Initiative and its strategic humanitarian partners, the UAE’s youth, the children of Zayed, have decreased the suffering of the poor in different countries of the world in past years by volunteering over five million hours in many innovative local and international volunteering initiatives, as a message of love, giving and loyalty and by providing an exceptional model of local and international humanitarian work.
OPINION, ANALYSIS AND CULTURE
“Eyl is so beautiful,” I said. The air smelled of a mixture of earth and sky. The soft sand felt good beneath the soles of my feet. A thin butterfly with black and white wings lifted up and hovered over the water well to my right. “My father used to talk to me about Eyl before he died.” “May he rest in peace?” she said and lifted her cup up to her lip and sipped it. “The pirates ruined the good name of Eyl.”
The “Good Pirates” Of Somalia
01 – April – Source : Salon – 2900 Words
One morning in Eyl, Somalia, Osman, a married fisherman in his thirties, woke up with the rising of the sun. His wife and eight children, all under 14 years old, were still sleeping in the hut beneath the edge of the mountain. The ocean breathed cold. Osman had a small boat with a tiny engine. Taking a drag of his cigarette, he prepared his fishnet, got on his boat, turned the engine, and waved goodbye as his wife, pregnant with their ninth child and woken by his commotion, poked her head out of the hut. Osman took off.Three years later when I met Fawzia, Osman’s wife, she told me how she could not forget the memory of her husband’s one hand holding the engine handle and his other hand waving to her as the image of him on the boat grew smaller and smaller and then disappeared into the blue Indian ocean. He never made it back to his family. Four days later, the ocean spat out his decomposed body. His mouth was duct-taped shut, his hands were tied together with a gray zip tie behind his back, and bullet holes littered his chest.
Fawzia and I sat in her hut, and she pulled out a gray burlap bag and pushed it to me. “Here,” she said. Tears poured from her eyes. “His pictures are in the bag.” “Thank you,” I replied and I placed my hand over her shoulder. I was in Eyl because it is the birthplace of my father. As a child, my father talked a lot about this coastal city, but it now looked like an abandoned oasis, with its white sand beach, white birds, palm trees and monkeys giggling from the top of the mountain.A fisherman, Osman was the breadwinner of the family. After he was murdered, Fawzia’s family nearly starved. She began to beg the other villagers for food so her children could eat. Osman was not the first or the second victim who went to work and never returned. Other fishermen disappeared. The suspected killers were on foreign ships and boats on the ocean, visible to the villagers on land. Looking through the pictures of Osman’s dead body, I did not know what to say to her. He was gone and I knew that none of my words could bring him back. “We have nine children together,” Fawzia said. “He is not here to help me raise the kids.” “I am so sorry,” I whispered. “May he rest in peace?”
I took some pictures of her family. I hugged her and gave her the little money I had. My tears soaked my chin. Anger boiled inside of me and my stomach turned. And then I returned to my motel. Sitting on a green plastic chair outside, I placed one leg on top of the other and listened to the faint splashes from the ocean waves. Asha, the owner of the motel, stepped out of the kitchen. She was a dark, tall and chisel-faced woman in her thirties. I asked for a cup of tea. She brought it to me.“Eyl is so beautiful,” I said. The air smelled of a mixture of earth and sky. The soft sand felt good beneath the soles of my feet. A thin butterfly with black and white wings lifted up and hovered over the water well to my right. “My father used to talk to me about Eyl before he died.” “May he rest in peace?” she said and lifted her cup up to her lip and sipped it. “The pirates ruined the good name of Eyl.”
TOP TWEETS
@Daudoo: BREAKING: #Germany Foreign Minister, Sigmar Gabriel, arrives in #Mogadishu on an unannounced visit, meets with #Somalia govt officials.
@CrisisGroup: #Somalia has a genuine opportunity to promote needed political and security reforms #WatchList2017
@HarunMaruf: Somalia Pres Mohamed Abdullahi Farmajo, army generals receive US Africa command’s Thomas Waldhauser and Amb Stephen Schwartz, Mogadishu.
@Vatescorp: #Ethiopia sentences two #alShabaab militants, recruiting, trying to establish a call, plotting to carry out attacks http://ow.ly/Exzx30biBfK
@DrBeileh: On #InternationalWorkersDay we thank all the workers of Somalia for working towards building a better nation. Committed to supporting you.
@ngos4justice: “#Somalia has a genuine opportunity to promote needed political and security reforms” http://ow.ly/9KLh30bjIYF
IMAGE OF THE DAY
Prime Minister, Hassan Ali Khayre receives the German Foreign Affairs Minister, Sigmar Gabriel.
Photo: @Garadadde