October 14, 2016 | Daily Monitoring Report

Heavy Fighting In Galkayo

13 October – Source: Dhacdo.com – 128 Words

Reports from the city of Galkayo in the Mudug region of Somalia indicate that heavy fighting between Galmudug and Puntland forces has again erupted in the area. This comes after days of military build up in the area. New sources report that the two rival forces engaged in clashes using heavy weapons. The resulting clashes has forced the remaining residents of Galkayo to flee the area. According to sources the clashes resulted in the death of seven fighters from both sides. The injured and the bodies of those who were killed in the fighting were taken to hospitals in the city. It seems both the administrations of Galmudug and Puntland have refused to heed calls for an immediate end to the ongoing fighting.

Key Headlines

Heavy Fighting In Galkayo (Dhacdo.com)
HirShabelle Parliament Elects Speaker (jowhar.com)
Galmudug Forces Take Over Godinlabe Village From Ahlu-Sunna: Residents (Goobjoog News)
Somalia Bombing And Ambush Kill At Least 13 Including Soldiers (Bloomberg)
Somalia: Bomb Attack Kills 7 Soldiers (Anadolu Agency)
Could Fadumo Dayib Become Somalia’s First Female President? (CBC Radio)

NATIONAL MEDIA

HirShabelle Parliament Elects Speaker

13 October – Source: Jowhar.com – 103 Words

A highly competitive election for the Speaker’s position of the new HirShabelle state was concluded in Jowhar yesterday with Osman Bare been elected by the region’s MPs as their new speaker for the parliament. The Speaker of the HirShabelle state secured 61 votes while the runner up got 28 votes. The Speaker of the Federal Parliament, Mohamed Osman witnessed the voting process and congratulated the new speaker of the HiirShabelle parliament. He was accompanied by a sections of MPs from the Federal Parliament. The runner up in the contest, Abukar Hassan Ali immediately after the election congratulated the speaker.

Galmudug Forces Take Over Godinlabe Village From Ahlu-Sunna: Residents

14 October – Source: Goobjoog News – 139 Words

Galmudug forces on Friday morning seized control of Godinlabe in Central Somalia Region of Galgaduud, from Ahlu-Sunna Waljama’a, a moderate Islamist group based in region, residents said. Most of the fighters of the Ahlu-Sunna left the village hours before the Galmudug forces with tanks moved in facing resistance from remaining Ahlu-Sunna fighters, residents said. “The fighters fled before the forces arrived. There were some skirmishes outside the town but it is now largely peaceful,” Farah Abdi, a resident said. Another resident who declined his named said three people were killed and several others were injured during the fighting on Friday. Hundreds of women and children have started fleeing the area. On Thursday, both Galmudug forces and the fighters of Ahlu-Sunna Waljama’a fought in Godinlabe village which lies 30km south of Adado.The clashes claimed lives of over four people.

INTERNATIONAL MEDIA

Somalia Bombing And Ambush Kill At Least 13, Including Soldiers

14 October – Source: Bloomberg – 237 Words

At least seven people were killed and eight others injured after a bomb ripped through a restaurant in the Middle Shabelle region town of El-Baraf in Somalia, an army official and relatives said. A separate ambush killed at least six soldiers near the southern Somali town of Baidoa. El-Baraf was recently liberated by AMISOM-led forces from Al-Shabaab fighters who controlled the town for eight years. According to Ahmed Tohow, an army officer at El-Baraf, most of the dead were civilians. The officer said the blast was caused by a landmine planted inside the restaurant and that seven were killed.Arale Ali, a relative of one of the wounded, said by phone that he saw eight wounded people lying in a pool of blood. In the second incident, at least six Somali forces were confirmed dead and five others injured in an ambush by Al-Shabaab fighters on the outskirts of the southern Somali town of Baidoa, police and officials said. A convoy was on its way to Daynunay, a military base, when it was ambushed by suspected Al-Shabaab militants. Ahmed Nunow, a police officer at police headquarters in Baidoa, confirmed by phone that six soldiers had been killed in the surprise attack. The newly established regional administration’s security minister in Baidoa, Abdifatah Gesey, said that five other soldiers were wounded.

Somalia: Bomb Attack Kills 7 Soldiers

13 October – Source: Anadolu Agency – 237 Words

At least seven soldiers were killed and six seriously wounded in a bomb attack on a Somali military convoyThursday“The bomb was a remote-controlled land mine which targeted a Somali military forces convoy heading to Baidoa from a Somali national army base in Doynunay,” Haji Mohamed Bayhal, a Somali security official, told Anadolu by phone. The Doynunay base is 18 kilometers south of the town of Baidoa, the capital of the southwestern Bay region, some 240 km from the Somali capital Mogadishu.The convoy was targeted by an IED blast as it was transporting military supplies to Doynunay in the Bay region, where the Somali National Alliance (SNA) and interim South West State administration army have bases, he said. Abdirahim Osman, a local medical worker, told Anadolu Agency that at least six people were admitted to the main local main hospital “in very serious condition.”No group has yet claimed responsibility for the attack, but security officials accused Somali-based militant group Al-Shabaab, as they claimed several attacks in the region this year.

OPINION, ANALYSIS, AND CULTURE

“It is a civic duty. It is a moral obligation for us to help people who are in a weaker position, people who are suffering,”

Could Fadumo Dayib Become Somalia’s First Female President?

13 October – Source: CBC Radio – 348 Words

Fadumo Dayib’s life has been marked by transition. She was born to displaced Somali parents in Kenya. In her lifetime she has been a refugee, a nurse, a public health expert, an activist, a PhD candidate and a mother. But now she is adding another title to that long list: Fadumo Dayib is running for president of Somalia, with elections slated for the end of this month. “I believe my life is a vocational calling,” she tells The Current’s guest host Piya Chattopadhyay. Dayib is an unlikely candidate, Deported from Kenya back to Somalia as a teenager, Dayib lived there until she was forced to flee the civil war. She has lived in Helsinki, Finland, on and off for 26 years, but has helped transform her homeland from a failed state into the vibrant democracy she dreams of. “It is a civic duty. It is a moral obligation for us to help people who are in a weaker position, people who are suffering,” says Dayib. “Doing nothing means you’re also guilty and you’re part of the problem.”
Dayib faces many obstacles, not least of which are the daily death threats she receives for putting herself in the running to lead the country. She tells Chattopadhyay the electoral system is “holding the country hostage,” and dismantling that power structure is one of her platform points, along with ending female genital mutilation and imposing a zero-tolerance policy on corruption. She says she has also opened the door to beginning a dialogue with the al-Shabaab militant group, on the condition that they first disarm. Dayib recognizes her odds of winning are slim. “I think the prospects of anyone who wants to actually do justice, who wants to move the country forward constructively…their prospect is actually very, very low.” But she has vowed to continue fighting for a better Somalia. “I am one of those people who will never be silenced,” says Dayib. “I believe dialogue, reconciliation, peace, respect, upholding the constitution, respecting the rule of law — these to be really the key to peace and prosperity inside the country.”

TOP TWEETS

@Daudoo: At least 8 people killed in a deadly fighting between#puntland & #Galmudug troops in #Galkayo town yesterday – Residents #Somalia

@UNSomalia:Federal gov’t of #Somalia and int’l community urge immediate end to renewed violence in#Gaalkacyo,http://bit.ly/2e05TKN

@AlinorAbdi: It’s so sad that after 30 years of war, we still can not understand the essence of peace. When are we going to learn our lesson? #Somalia

@HassanIstiila: @fqdayib: 44yr refugee-turned-academic is the first female in Somalia’s history to run for president, she among the 18 candidates. #Somalia

@SomaliAid: Almost half a million #Malnourished children in Somalia carry high mortality risk and require lifesaving therapeutic nutritional support.
Follow the conversation →

IMAGE OF THE DAY

Somali Interior Minister Abdirahman Mohamed Hussein and Speaker of the Federal Parliament, Mohamed Osman (Jawari ), attends the election of HiirShabelle speaker and his deputies in Jowhar.

Photo: Radio Muqdisho