November 29, 2013 | Daily Monitoring Report.
10 people killed in northern Somalia fighting
29 Nov- Source: Somalimirror/ Hiiraan Online-155 words
At least 12 people have been reported dead and others were injured in intense battles that took place Thursday evening in Taleh, Sool region, north of Somalia.
The fighting which was described as heavy started around 2:00 pm Taleh time between forces loyal to the Puntland administration and those belonging to Khatumo state. At least 10 people killed and injuring others.
Eyewitnesses said that the fighting in the region has led to the displacement of many civilians from their homes. There were no details about the incident until now from the warring sides in the region.
The fighting comes at a time when various political activities is taking place in Taleh town.
Key Headlines
- 10 people killed in northern Somalia fighting (Somalimirror/Hiiraan Online)
- Local NGO supplies aid to flood victims in Middle Shabelle (Radio Bar-kulan)
- Kenya to close all refugee camps (Star –Kenya)
- Fire destroys properties in Somalia capital (Somali Current)
- Most Somali refugees in Kenya fear return home (Daily Nation/AFP)
- Dhusamareb authorities take in al Shabaab defectors (Sabahi Online)
- HM the King receives a letter from Somali President (Bahrain News Agency)
- CECAFA: Burundi ease past Somalia (New Vision)
- Mogadishu Mom Misses Out in Somalia Shilling’s Rally: Currencies (Bloomberg)
- MSF says Somali refugees reluctant to return warns against aid cut (Xinhua/Global Post)
SOMALI MEDIA
10 people killed in northern Somalia fighting
29 Nov- Source: Somalimirror/ Hiiraan Online-155 words
At least 12 people have been reported dead and others were injured in intense battles that took placeThursday evening in Taleh, Sool region, north of Somalia.
The fighting which was described as heavy started around 2:00 pm Taleh time between forces loyal to the Puntland administration and those belonging to Khatumo state. At least 10 people killed and injuring others.
Eyewitnesses said that the fighting in the region has led to the displacement of many civilians from their homes. There were no details about the incident until now from the warring sides in the region.
The fighting comes at a time when various political activities is taking place in Taleh town.
Local NGO supplies aid to flood victims in Middle Shabelle
29 Nov- Source: Radio Bar-kulan- 117 words
Zamzam Foundation, a local NGO has supplied food aid to hundreds of internally displaced families in the outskirts of Jowhar, the provincial seat of Middle Shabelle region. The NGO provided food aid consisting of sugar, rice and cooking oil to more than eight hundred families.
Ali Mudey, an official from Zamzam Foundation said that it is the first time his NGO has supplied food to the families and are now taking measures to provide further assistance to them.
The head of the Disaster Management Committee of the Middle Shabelle region Osman Mohamed Mukhtar thanked the local NGO for its timely aid supplies.
The families have been displaced by recent clan skirmishes and the flooding of River Shabelle.
Somaliland Foreign Minister leaves for Ethiopia
29 Nov- Source: Somaliland Informer- 95 words
Somaliland Foreign Minister Mr. Mohamed Biihi Yoonis has left for Ethiopia on Thursday accompanying Deputy British ambassador to Ethiopia who paid a day visit to Hargeisa.
It is not so far known the puspose of the trip of Somaliland Foreign Minister to Addis Ababa but he was spotted while borading plane bound to Ethiopian capital city.
Somaliland’s Foreign Minister embarked on numerous visits to Ethiopia ever since he assumed the Foreign Ministry.
Biihi is reported to have postposned a trip that Ministerial level delegation were about to viist Djibouti to hold talks with Djiboutian counterparts.
Fire destroys properties in Somalia capital
28 Nov- Source: Somali Current/Hiiraan Online/Jowhar Online- 423 words
A fire broke out at a fuel depot and car sale yard, in the centre of the Somali capital Mogadishu, causing extensive damage. Over 100 vehicles, 800 gallons of fuel and hundreds of cartons of car lubricants were in the depot at the time of the fire. A huge smoke hang over the city for hours as AMISOM soldiers, together with the newly trained Mogadishu firefighters battled to put out the fire.
The fire that paralyzed business along the Kilometer 4 Junction has been linked to the fuel trade in the area, as the possible cause.
One-eye witnesses however said it was sparked off a tanker, from which fuel was being transferred, before spreading out.
“There was fuel being sold here, so the fuel caught fire and then it spread to the cars. The cars then exploded as a result and the nearby shops caught fire. No one was killed by the fire but we know that there has been extensive damage and the traders here have lost a lot of their belongings,” he says.
The effort to put out the fire went on for hours. This comes just over a month after the Mogadishu fire fighters completed training in Fire and Rescue Skills, facilitated by AMISOM.
Speaking at the scene, Farah Karar Mahamud, one of the fire fighters said they had done everything possible to put out the fire but still face major constraints.
“We were informed that this fire was as a result of fuel. There was fuel being transferred from a tanker and then it caught fire. We have been criticized for our shortcomings because we didn’t have a water tanker with us. We would like to thank AMISOM who came to our aid. They have been our mentors and trainers,” said Farah Mahamud.
One of the traders in the area Mohamud Hashi Awale says they have suffered extensive losses. “There were up to 800 drums of diesel and petrol stored in here, there were 2000 cartons of lubricants, there were 130 cars and there was a lot of money in cash,” he says.
The fire was put out after hours of battling; leaving the traders to count their losses while others struggled to salvage what little was left. Still recovering from over two decades of war, Somalia is yet to have an established banking system while fuel trade remains largely unregulated without specific trading areas.
In September there was another huge fire after an accidental explosion at another fuel storage facility at the former US resident in Mogadishu.
REGIONAL MEDIA
Kenya to close all refugee camps
29 Nov- Source: Star –Kenya – 369 words
The Government is determined to close down all the refugee camps in the country in the next two years, the National Assembly heard yesterday.
Administration and National Security committee chairman Asman Kamama told the House that the camps will be closed once all the refugees return to their respective countries. He however, said that the speed of repatriating the refugees will be dependent on the stability of the Somali Government.
“The refugee camps will be closed as soon as the refugees return home. We are alive to the safety and care of the people in the camps and we will only facilitate their return if where they are headed is safe,” Kamama said in response to a question by Saboti MP David Wafula.
Wafula had expressed concerns with the free flow of refugees that had exposed the country to security threats from terrorist groups such as Al Shabaab.
Dhusamareb authorities take in al Shabaab defectors
28 Nov- Source: Sabahi Online-602 Words
The large number of militants defecting from al Shabaab has prompted Dhusamareb authorities to establish a rehabilitation centre for those who surrender to the local administration, District Commissioner Moallim Abdirahman Ali told Sabahi. Ali made the announcement November 17th at an event in Dhusamareb where officials offered amnesty to a young man who defected from al Shabaab.
“Mohamed Kafi Abdi Mohamud, 20, was a member of al Shabaab for eight months,” Ali said. “Afterwards, his family informed us that he had defected from al Shabaab and was hiding out in a remote region and we then extended amnesty to him.” “I would like to be forgiven and become part of society,” said Mohamud, who spoke at the event.
Most Somali refugees in Kenya fear return home
28 Nov- Source: Daily Nation/AFP- 346 words
The vast majority of Somali refugees fear returning to their war-torn country, Doctors Without Borders said on Thursday, warning aid must continue despite a recent deal for refugees to go home.
Despite living in often appalling conditions in the world’s biggest refugee complex of Dadaab — home to over 400,000 mainly Somali refugees — at least four out of five are too frightened to go back to Somalia, according to assessments by the medical aid agency MSF.
“Their reluctance to leave is despite poor living conditions in the camps,” MSF said in a statement, noting that nearly half of people it interviewed said they had no means of keeping their homes dry during the current rainy season, one in ten had no access to latrines, and a quarter said they did not feel safe.
HM the King receives a letter from Somali President
28 Nov- Source: Bahrain News Agency-160 Words
His Majesty King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa today received a written letter from President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud of the Federal Republic of Somalia on boosting bilateral relations between the two countries.
Foreign Affairs Minister, Shaikh Khalid bin Ahmed bin Mohammed Al Khalifa, received the letter during receiving Somali President’s Special Envoy, Minister of State for Foreign Affairs, Dr. Mohammed Noor.
Foreign Affairs Minister conveyed HM the King’s greetings to the Somali President and wishes for good health and happiness and for Somalia and its people further stability, progress and prosperity, stressing bolstering the deep-rooted relations between the two countries, praising Somalia’s supportive stances towards the Kingdom of Bahrain.
CECAFA: Burundi ease past Somalia
28 Nov- Source: Standard Media/New Vision-205 Words
BURUNDI Swallows started their campaign of the GOtv CECAFA Senior Challenge Cup on a high note when they beat Somalia 2-0 at Kenyatta Stadium in Machakos on Thursday. Christophe Nduwarugira scored the first goal after 42 minutes when he beat Jibril Hassan Mohammed with a close range shot to take a 1-0 lead at the break.
Abdul Razak put the issue beyond doubt with the second goal after 54 minutes to give his team a brilliant start. Razak who was the star attraction owing to his brilliant ball display was voted the man of the match and awarded a decoder by pay television GOtv. Speaking in fluent Swahili, Razak said the win was a morale booster to the team and hoped they will consolidate their fairy tale in the tournament.
“It was a tough match but we struggled to register the crucial win which had added impetus ahead of our next matches against Tanzania and Zambia. The rare rains that pounded the Sunny town 64km South East of Nairobi marred the play with the pitch becoming waterlogged.
INTERNATIONAL MEDIA
Mogadishu Mom Misses Out in Somalia Shilling’s Rally: Currencies
29 Nov- Source: Bloomberg-821 Words
Asha Ali Mohamed has seen few benefits from the Somali shilling’s 33 percent surge against the dollar this year as the Horn of Africa nation starts to recover from two decades of civil war.
The shilling’s advance has made it the best performer among 177 currencies tracked by Bloomberg this year, and while signs of a business revival in the capital Mogadishu are fanning the appreciation, there’s another less encouraging reason for the gains: no new official bank notes have been printed since 1990.
For Mohamed, a 40-year-old mother of two, that means the foreign cash she receives from relatives in London buys less local currency every time she goes to the money changers.
“We’re increasingly dependent on dollars from abroad, and the same dollar fetches fewer shillings,” Ali Mohamed said while buying rice and flour in Mogadishu’s Bakara market. “I don’t know how to utilize the meager resources I have. It’s catastrophic.”
MSF says Somali refugees reluctant to return, warns against aid cut
28 Nov- Source: Xnhua/Global Post-663 Words
International medical humanitarian charity on Thursday said the majority of Somali refugees living in northern Kenyan camps are not willing to return home due to insecurity and harsh economic conditions. The Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) also warned the recently signed agreement by UNHCR, Kenya and Somali governments must not happen at the expense of providing aid to refugees.
“No one chooses a life as a refugee, and most refugees struggle to get by on what the government and aid agencies provide,” MSF’s Director of Operations Dr. Jean-Clément Cabrol said in a statement released in Nairobi. “Any decision to return should be made willingly and gladly, and not be forced on them by a cut in aid. Security and dignity must be ensured for all returnees,” Cabrol added.
According to the charity, assessment it conducted amongst patients in its medical facilities in Dadaab’s Dagahaley camp in August found that four in five people would choose not to return to Somalia, given the current situation.
SOCIAL MEDIA
CULTURE / OPINION / EDITORIAL / ANALYSIS / BLOGS/ DISCUSSION BOARDS
“It is visits like these that give a human face to the present migration crisis, to the hopes and insecurity behind it. Obviously, our national decisions cannot be based on our emotional response alone. But empathy can help us be less flippant and casually cruel in how we discuss other people’s troubles and tragedies.”
Maltese passport in Somalia
29 Nov- Source: Times of Somalia-939 Words
Up until a week or so ago, I thought I had heard and learned enough about Maltese passports. But that was before I visited Somalia, on a personal fact-finding mission to the land from where many irregular migrants to Malta originate. I arrived from Ethiopia and landed in Hargeisa, Somalia’s second city and the capital of Somaliland, an autonomous region within the country. Autonomy has meant that Somaliland has acquired a reputation for good public order, at least when compared to Somalia, the State it legally forms part of.
The people of Somaliland had been victims of vicious massacres conducted by the regime of Siad Barre, which collapsed 22 years ago. Those massacres themselves contributed to the civil war that followed. Since then, the local government declared independence, seeing itself as a successor to the British Somaliland protectorate, that was fleetingly independent half a century ago before being joined up to Somalia. However, Somaliland’s claims to statehood have received no international recognition just yet.
A reputation for good order is very relative, as I was soon reminded at Hargeisa airport. Perhaps good order compared with Somalia, which is only now building up the semblance of a State administration after years of struggling with a failed State. However, to a European the first impressions were of a country that had its own struggles.
“Everything from camels and khat to corruption is being discussed on the hashtag #OnlyinSomalia.”
Trending: Camels, khat and corruption #OnlyinSomalia
28 Nov- Source: BBC-303 Words
If you want a snapshot of what’s on the minds of Somalis, then hop in and cast an eye through the tweets under the hashtag #OnlyinSomalia. “You can feel the frustration in some of the tweets,” says Abdurahman Warsame, a Somali journalist with Al Jazeera, who started the hashtag on Tuesday. His first tweet read: “One country where everyone looks the same, and has the same religion, yet there are 23 years of civil war and many governments #OnlyinSomalia.”
Although the total number of tweets wasn’t huge, the issue clearly resonated and many Somalis began to chime in. A number of the tweets make reference to the recent arrest of a Somali woman who alleged she was raped, together with the journalist who reported it. And many refer to the ongoing power struggle between the Somali president and prime minister. Others make more of a social commentary. “#OnlyinSomalia Where women are the breadwinners and men just chew,” tweets Hassan Burco, a Somali living in the UK – a reference to the widespread use of the herbal stimulant khat.
“Kenya’s government is keen to look tough on Somali immigrants in the wake of a recent terrorist attack in Nairobi, the capital, for which al Shabaab, a Somali militia allied to al Qaeda, claimed responsibility. But where, then, would the refugees go?”
Kenya and its Somalis: Go back home!
28 Nov- Source: The Economist-398 Words
IT IS time for the 500,000-odd citizens of Somalia living in Kenya to go home—that is, according to Kenya’s interior minister, Joseph Ole Lenku. He visited the sprawling Dadaab camp near Kenya’s border with Somalia on November 23rd to tell the nearly 400,000 refugees there that it was closing time. “The time for debate” over whether it was safe for them to return to their conflict-ridden country was past, he told them. “There is no turning back on the process [of repatriation] of refugees.”
This has rattled the UN’s High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR). While progress in some parts of Somalia is stumbling ahead after two decades of civil war, the country remains one of the world’s most dangerous. Refugees have rights under international law; strict conditions must be met before they can be sent home. Normally a survey would be conducted to establish whether they think it is safe to return. Little of this appears to have happened before a deal was signed on November 10th between the UNHCR and the governments of Somalia and Kenya.
The foreign correspondents who covered Somalia in the early 1990s included a lot of war-weary hacks. Dan Eldon wasn’t one of those.
A mother finds meaning in a Mogadishu nightmare
28 Nov- Source: PRI-442 Words
He was fresh-faced and talented and just 21 years old when he first travelled to the Horn of Africa nation in 1992. He went to photograph the grinding conflict that even then seemed to have been going on forever. Youth didn’t hold Eldon back. He landed a coveted job with Reuters and went to Mogadishu again and again.
When I was in Somalia in the 1990s, reporting for Monitor Radio, I remember him greeting guests at the front desk of the al-Sahafi Hotel, the high-walled compound where reporters stashed their gear and gathered on the rooftop when the conflict made it too noisy to sleep. The hotelier was helping Dan boost sales for the tee shirts he’d designed, the best known of which announced, “Viva Somalia… thank you for not looting.” Dan, a talented photojournalist, didn’t seem bothered that the first 200 of those shirts were, in fact, looted.
Dan was at the al-Sahafi on July 12, 1993, when a group of Somalis ran to the hotel to alert reporters to a bombing by UN forces, then under US leadership. The mission was intended to obliterate a house where a warlord was thought to be hiding. Dan’s mother, Kathy Eldon, tells the story of what happened to her son next in her new memoir, “In the Heart of Life.”
Top tweets
@amisomsomalia AMISOM soldiers, the newly trained Mogadishu firefighters & #Somali Police battled to put out yesterday’s fire at KM4 http://on.fb.me/QqTSeN
@Aynte Progress. Hope. @amisomsomalia: PHOTOS: SIMAD University Graduation #Somalia http://bit.ly/1iZggL4 ,http://on.fb.me/QqTSeN ”
@OCHASom VIDEO: A compelling story of saving the lives of mothers in #Somalia @WHOsom http://bit.ly/198C6nT
@petermartell New deal no success: most #Somalia refugees in #Kenya fear return + #MSF warns aid must stay @H_Pagano@AFPAfrica http://news.yahoo.com/most-
@grazianodasilva #Somalia: FAO @EU_Commission ICIPE boost #Somaliland #milk production to cover 80% of local needs http://ow.ly/rhKxc
Image of the day
Mogadishu fire fighters and AMISOM troops pull a hose pipe as they fight fire that razed a fuel depot and car sale yard along the KM 4 Junction in Mogadishu on 28 November, 2013. Photo: AMISOM