May 25, 2017 | Morning Headlines

Main Story

Process To Register Political Parties Starts

24 May – Source: Somali Update – 244 words

The National Independent Electoral Commission (NIEC) has opened political parties registrar office in Mogadishu on Tuesday amid attempts to end the clan-based politics in Somalia. The chairwoman of NIEC Halima Ismail Ibrahim said the aim is the elimination of clan-based political system that has marred all elections in Somalia in the past decade and to enable one-man-one-vote at 2021. “We are now starting the process to register political parties so elections in 2021 can be one-person-one-vote.” She said.

But the main concern is that again registered political parties involvement in the promotion of clan interests as cautioned by members of the Federal Parliament. “Political parties should come up with a national agenda and should not become promoters of clan interests and nepotism.” Lawmaker Zainab Amir voiced during the event on Tuesday in Mogadishu.

She noted that ending the current 4.5 (four major clans getting equal shares and one minor getting half) power sharing formula of the Federal Government positions will only depend on how the political parties and the leaders act. Somalia failed to hold one-person-one-vote following the end of President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud’s term of four years forcing the country to hold indirect election where clan delegates picked their representatives in the parliament and selecting President Mohamed Abdullahi Farmajo. In late 2015, the then National Leaders Forum government set roadmap to enable free direct elections in 2021 as President Farmajo also pledged that his administration will be pushing for reaching that goal.

Key Headlines

Process To Register Political Parties Starts (Somali Update)
Prime Minister Visits Troops At Frontline In Lower Shabelle Region (Garowe Online)
After Meeting Journalists Somali PM Assures Freedom Of Press (Somali Update)
Somalia President Arrives In Doha (Gulf Times)
Blast in Somali Capital Kills Five Injures Six (Reuters)
Somalis Are Fleeing Famine — Only To Find Death In A Place Of Refuge (Washington Post)

NATIONAL MEDIA

Prime Minister Visits Troops At Frontline In Lower Shabelle Region

24 May – Source: Garowe Online – 199 words

Somali Prime Minister Hassan Ali Khayre has on Wednesday paid a visit to frontlines in Lower Shabelle region, to boost the morale of his troops battling al-Shabaab militants. The Prime Minister accompanied by Ministers, armed forces chiefs and other senior security officials arrived in Balli Doogle Airbase, a former air forces training base, located 111 kilometers southwest of Mogadishu.

During his visit, PM Khayre is expected to meet Somali and AMISOM military commanders over military offensive aimed at driving al-Shabaab militants from the region, according to sources. Dozens of U.S. soldiers providing training and logistic support to the Somali national Army (SNA) and AMISOM forces battling the extremists are also stationed at Balli Doogle Airbase.

The Federal government of Somalia has recently deployed thousands of army soldiers and battle wagons to the region ahead of the planned military operation in coming months. This is the first field visit by Somali PM aimed to assess the combat forces at frontlines, who are battling the al-Qaeda linked al-Shabab fighters. The restive Lower Shabelle region has seen frequent deadly attacks on the bases of Somali and African Union forces by al-Shabab which overrun several strategic towns, including the agricultural Janale town.

After Meeting Journalists, Somali PM Assures Freedom Of Press

24 May – Source: Somali Update – 306 words

Somalia Prime Minister Hassan Ali Khayre has assured that his government is committed to protect the freedom of the media and work closely with journalists union in safeguarding the already under-attack media practitioners, Somali Update reports. Speaking at a dinner event he hosted last night in Mogadishu, Mr. Khaire thanked Somali journalists for their sacrifices to their nation as free media is important to our society in order to implement good governance in the country.
“We assure of freedom of expression as enshrined in chapter 18 of the provisional constitution.” Mr. Khaire said.

He noted that he personally asked to meet with journalists as part of a consultation with civil society groups, as media plays a pivotal role to the development of the country. “You sacrificed your lives by providing information to the public.” The country’s Premier said. ”A number of journalists died as a result of doing their work and my government want to stop the impunity as we are providing an environment that is conducive to freely do your excellent work to the society.”

As the Minister for Information Abdirahman Omar Osman (Yarisow) was present, the Prime Minister voiced his government’s willingness to accountability to what officials do and how they provide services to our people. Journalist’s leaders and individual journalists who attended the event hailed the Prime Minister for his engagement with public and in particular to civil society groups. Participants also thanked the PM for his bravery of implementing accountability procedures within the government and his assurance of freedom of expression.

The Information Minister Yarisow during the event praised the efforts of media practitioners towards the development of the country as media is key to the society’s wellbeing. Mr. Yarisow further promised to media practitioners to support their noble causes as they take huge sacrifices every day to provide public vital information.

INTERNATIONAL MEDIA

Somalia President Arrives In Doha

25 May – Source: Gulf Times – 69 words

President Mohamed Abdullahi Farmajo of Somalia arrived in Doha yesterday on a working visit to the State of Qatar. Upon arrival at Hamad International Airport, the Somali president and his accompanying delegation were greeted by HE the Minister of Development Planning and Statistics Dr Saleh Mohamed Salem al-Nabit, Acting Chargé d’Affaires of the Qatari embassy in Somalia Hassan Hamza Asad and Somalia’s ambassador to Qatar Omar Sheikh Ali Idris.

Blast In Somali Capital Kills Five, Injures Six

24 May – Source: Reuters – 255 words

A blast in the Somali capital killed five civilians and injured six more on Wednesday, a city spokesman said, underscoring the ability of Islamist insurgents to carry out bombings despite territorial losses. “We have confirmed five civilians, including a mother and her son, died,” said Abdifatah Omar Halane, spokesman for the Mogadishu mayor. A Reuters reporter at the scene saw burnt bodies and a wrecked car near a damaged police checkpoint. Bombings are a near-daily occurrence in the Somali capital. Most are claimed by the al Qaeda-linked Al-Shabaab militia, which is fighting to overthrow the weak U.N.-backed government and drive out the African Union peacekeeping force supporting it. Since withdrawing from the capital, Mogadishu, in 2011, al Shabaab has lost control of most of Somalia’s cities and towns. But it still retains a strong presence in swathes of the south and centre.

Also on Wednesday, eight Kenyan security officers were killed on the Kenyan side of the Somali border in two separate roadside bombings. Al Shabaab claimed responsibility for the first attack but could not be reached for comment on the second. Adding to the violence, a small jihadist group in the north of Somalia has split from the main insurgency and declared allegiance to Islamic State. That group claimed responsibility for a bombing in the northern city of Bosasso that killed five people on Tuesday. Somalia has been mired in civil war since 1991. It also suffering from a regional drought that threatens to tip its population of 12 million into famine.

OPINION/ANALYSIS/CULTURE

“Bashir Bille, 40, looks at the body of his son, Noor, 4, as men pray before burying him at a camp for displaced people in Baidoa, Somalia. Noor died from complications from cholera, and this was the third burial of the morning”.

Somalis Are Fleeing Famine — Only To Find Death In A Place Of Refuge

24 May – Source: Washington Post – 1090

Aftin Noor stepped back from the tiny graves he’d been digging and surveyed his work. Exhausted, he turned his palms skyward, squinting into the relentless midday sun, and asked God for an answer. “I dug three children’s graves this morning,” said Noor, his voice cracking, his undershirt soaked with sweat. “And I have dug 20 or more this month. Why?” The immediate answer is cholera. The waterborne disease is sweeping through this city’s sprawling refugee camps, which are filled with people driven from their villages by a vicious drought. Spotty, tantalizing rain showers have left fetid puddles, speeding the infection’s spread. Like a desperate predator, cholera often picks off the weakest targets: children.

The drought and the looming specter of a famine have brought nearly 160,000 people to Baidoa from the baked countryside. They have come to save themselves from almost certain starvation. But an outbreak of cholera is spreading death through this place of refuge. The exodus to Baidoa began last November when stores of food began to run out following two years of limited rains. More than 55,000 people arrived in April alone. Whole villages have relocated here. Somalia is no stranger to famine. Between late 2010 and early 2012, about 260,000 people perished, mostly around Baidoa, about 120 miles northwest of Mogadishu. Then, as now, the militant Islamist group Al-Shabab, which controls almost all rural southwestern Somalia and is hostile to aid agencies, made it nearly impossible for lifesaving food and water to be delivered anywhere but to the few cities under government control.

Baidoa was Al-Shabab territory then. People starved while walking from their homes near here to camps in the distant capital Mogadishu, or in neighboring Kenya and Ethiopia. Now Baidoa is an island of government control. Aid agencies have established a presence here. Half of Somalia’s population, or roughly 6 million people, are now dependent on humanitarian aid. The United Nations and a constellation of international and local aid agencies and donors believe they are better prepared to address the crisis. Most think 2017 will not mirror 2011, even if the rains fail again.

But the rapid coalescence of squalid camps has complicated the picture. More than 20,000 cases of cholera or related waterborne illnesses have been registered in the Baidoa region since January. Unlike the giant U.N. camps in, say, Jordan or South Sudan, Baidoa’s are new and not directly U.N.-administered, with the displaced responsible for building their own shelters and buying their own food, mostly with cash they receive from international aid groups. The camps have sprung up on vacant land owned by locals. In that vacuum, sanitation facilities fell behind more immediate needs — like getting food — and now aid workers are trying to stay ahead of the outbreak’s curve. “We are trying to negotiate with the landowners to allow us to build pit latrines, but some of them are being stubborn,” said Peter de Clercq, who oversees the U.N.’s humanitarian mission in Somalia. Cholera, which is endemic in Somalia, spreads quickly in places where people defecate in the open, and the waste ends up in food or drinking water.