NATIONAL MEDIA
17 October – Halbeeg – 138 Words
Three people were shot and killed in Mogadishu Waberi district on Wednesday night. According to eyewitness gunmen killed the three men separately and escaped the scene. Police arrived at the sight later for investigations. Armed group al-Shabaab later claimed the responsibility of the attack. The group said the three were officials from Somali National Intelligence and Security Agency ( NISA). Al-Shabaab targets Somali government officials and their international organization partners. The group has lost key strategic areas mainly in the Lower and Middle Shabelle regions following offensives by Somali National Army backed by AMISOM troops in recent past months. The troops recaptured Aw-dhegle, Barire, Sabid and Canole which was previously controlled by the group for years. Recently appointed youthful Somali National Army chief, General Odowa Rage vowed an offensive against the group to retake areas still under their control.
17 October – Source: Radio Shabelle – 271 Words
Somali Prime Minister, Hassan Ali Khaire, has flown to the United States for World Bank and IMF summit. The Prime Minister’s high-level delegation, which included some of his cabinet members, was seen off at the Adan Adde International Airport by senior Government officials. Confirming the departure of Mr. Khaire, the Prime Minister’s office said. PM Khairee will hold discussions with officials from both the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. “Off to the USA to attend the World Bank & IMF News annual meetings; pertinent topics under discussion include securing debt relief & arrears clearance for Somalia,” reads a Twitter post by the office of PM Kheire. The Prime Minister vowed that his office will work assiduously to attain and sustain ultimate development objectives……
16 October – Source: Hableeg – 131 Words
Somali President, Mohamed Abdullahi Farmajo, received credentials from two new ambassadors; Staffan Tillander of Sweden and Alberto Vecchi of the Republic of Italy on Wednesday. The two envoys also presented a copy of a letter of greetings from their respective presidents to Somali Head of State. They are part of growing diplomatic engagements with the Federal Republic of Somalia as relative peace returns to the Horn of the African nation. Villa Somalia said they will further strengthen long-term mutual interest and common progress. Italy provides capacity building support for Somali armed forces to rebuild agency to strengthen peace and security whereas Sweden supports improvement social service sectors such as health. Somalia has registered increased diplomatic presence in recent years, several countries including the United States have reopened their embassies in Mogadishu.
16 October – Source: Somali Affairs – 144 Words
The president of the South West State of Somalia (SWS), Abdiaziz Hassan Mohamed ‘Laftagareen’, received on Monday a delegation from the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) led by the head of IOM in Baidoa. The meeting discussed how IOM can increase its activities in the South West and the most effective way to address issues of the Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) and accelerate urban reconstruction projects. The state president was accompanied for the meeting by the Minister of Planning and Development of South West State, Ahmed Madobe Nunow Mohamed, and SWS Presidential Director Abdikadir Mohamed Baafo. The IOM delegation pledged to intensify their commitments in the region and pledged that the IDPs, who are facing severe rains across the country, will receive emergency assistance. President ‘Laftagareen’ thanked the IOM officials for their visit and commended the great work they are doing in the state.
16 October – Source: Radio Dalsan – 501 Words
5 decades ago today, the former democratically-elected president of Somalia, Abdirashid Ali Sharmarke, was assassinated by a bodyguard while visiting the town of Las Anod. It’s thought the assassination was politically-motivated but details remained largely a mystery for 50 years on. In 1968, Sharmarke narrowly escaped an assassination attempt. A grenade exploded near the car that was transporting him back from the airport, but failed to kill him. On October 15, 1969, while paying an official visit to the northern town of Las Anod, Sharmarke was shot dead by one of his own bodyguards. On duty outside the guest-house where the president was staying, the officer fired an automatic rifle at close range, instantly killing Sharmarke. Observers suggested that the assassination was inspired by personal rather than political motives. Sharmarke’s assassination was quickly followed by a military coup d’état on October 21, 1969 (the day after his funeral), in which the Somali Army seized power without encountering armed opposition — essentially a bloodless takeover. The putsch was spearheaded by Major General Muhammad Siad Barre, who at the time commanded the army.
Sharmarke was born in 1919 in the town of Harardhere in the north-central Mudug region of Somalia. His father hailed from the Majeerteen Osman Mohamoud clan and his mother from the Habar Gidir (Sacad Siciid) clan. Raised in Mogadishu by his mother, Sharmarke attended Qur’anic schools and completed his elementary education in 1936. He then embarked on a career as a trader and later as a civil servant in the Italian colonial administration. In 1943, the year of its inauguration, Sharmarke joined the incipient Somali Youth League political party. He entered the British administration’s civil service the following year. While still a civil servant, Sharmarke completed his secondary education in 1953. He earned a scholarship to study at the Sapienza University of Rome, where he obtained a BA in Political Science. In 1960, his son, Omar Abdirashid Ali Sharmarke, who would later become Prime Minister of the Somali Transitional Federal Government, was born……
INTERNATIONAL MEDIA
16 October – Source: DW – 727 Words
The al-Shabaab militant group has sown fear and terror in Eastern Africa for more than a decade. The terrorist group is fighting to oust the Somali government and establish a society based on a rigid interpretation of Islamic Shariah law. Its original leadership was affiliated with al-Qaeda. Although based in Somalia, al-Shabab frequently launches terror attacks in other African countries, most notably in neighbouring Kenya. It has struck there more than 20 times in the past five years, killing at least 300 people.
In January 2019, 21 people died when Al-Shabaab gunmen attacked a hotel and office complex in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi. Most recently, Kenyan police shot and killed three alleged al-Shabab members and arrested seven. The men were suspected of planning attacks in the coastal city of Mombasa earlier in October. Al-Shabab says its strikes on Kenya are in retaliation for its troops crossing into Somalia: Kenya first sent soldiers into Somalia in 2011 to target al-Shabab fighters and in 2012 it officially joined the African Union’s peacekeeping mission in Somalia, known as AMISOM.
Ethiopia so far evaded large-scale al-Shabab attacks
Similarly to Kenya, al-Shabab also has an antagonistic relationship with neighbouring Ethiopia. Ethiopia, backed by the United States, invaded Somalia in December 2006, capturing the capital Mogadishu and helping the Somali interim government drive out the loose-knit Union of Islamic Courts, which controlled the capital and much of southern Somalia. Ethiopia also decided in 2013 to send troops to Somalia to join AMISON. In retaliation for this move, al-Shabab renewed its call for ‘jihad’ against Ethiopia. Despite this, Ethiopia has been targeted far less than Kenya and has so far managed to evade large-scale attacks. Six years ago, Ethiopia was spared bloodshed when two Somali suicide bombers accidentally blew themselves up in central Addis Ababa. Security officials assume they were preparing to kill football fans during Ethiopia’s World Cup qualifying match against Nigeria that was to take place later that day. Back then, the country’s vulnerability to extremists’ attacks even became the subject of a written question in the European Parliament.
Ethiopia arrests militants
In September this year, however, Ethiopian security officials announced the arrest of a number of alleged Al-Shabaab suspects. The suspects aimed to attack “hotels, religious festivities, gathering places and public areas” in the capital Addis Ababa, Oromia and Ethiopia’s Somali region, according to a statement by the country’s National Intelligence and Security Service (NISS) read out on state television. NISS did not specify how many people it detained, but the state broadcaster reported that it was 12. The suspects were said to have entered Ethiopia through Djibouti and Somalia, as well as the breakaway state of Somaliland. Berhanu Jula, deputy chief of Ethiopia’s military, told the state-owned Ethiopian News Agency that there is evidence al-Shabab “has recruited, trained and armed some Ethiopians.” Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed had also recently warned about attempts by the Somalia-based al-Shabab extremists to make inroads into Ethiopia, according to the Associated Press news agency…….
15 October – Source: ACTED – 456 Words
During the 2018 Deyr rainy season, parts of northern Somalia received only 25-50% of average rainfall. Sanaag region has experienced drought for several seasons and is among the regions worst affected by poor rains, with water scarcity, depletion of pasture, widespread food insecurity and livestock mortality. The urban population grew significantly, partly due to the increased number of internally displaced people who lost their pastoral livelihoods during the drought.
Hindisar is a 36-year-old widowed mother of five living in Dayacan neighbourhood of Erigavo town. She lost her husband one year ago to sudden onset hypertension. Hindisar lives in desperate circumstances, living in a one-bedroom home made of rough stacked blocks of stone covered by corroded iron sheet with all her five children. Hindisar is among thousands of displaced pastoral families whose only source of income, livestock, was decimated by the drought. Prior to the drought, the main source of income for Hindisar was the sale of livestock and livestock produce, such as milk and meat. With her 160 sheep and goats, she was able to sustain her family’s basic food, water, shelter and medication needs. As the drought continues to bite, Hindisar’s livestock died. Her family moved to the town of Erigavo hoping to find water for the remaining livestock, which unfortunately didn’t make it, so that she resorted to roadside trade in order to get daily bread. The situation for Hindisar took a turn for the worse when her children started to suffer from acute malnutrition and diarrhoea-related diseases, which led them to the hospital…….
OPINION, ANALYSIS AND CULTURE
“Somali refugees began arriving in significant numbers in Minnesota in the early 1990s after fleeing war in their homeland. The community quickly grew, with a steady stream of new arrivals and American-born children. Tensions have emerged over the years, and the Somali community has been targeted at times. In 2017, white supremacists bombed a mosque in suburban Bloomington. A few weeks ago, the Minneapolis police arrested a man on suspicion of vandalizing Somali-owned businesses. Prosecutors filed bias crime charges and said the man had expressed hatred of Somalis. But mostly, Somali-Americans said this week in a series of interviews, Minnesota has felt like home.”
15 October – Source: New York Times – 956 Words
At a suburban supermarket a few days ago, Warda Abdi, a Somali-American, was approached by a white woman she had never met, who said: “We love you guys. We want you to be here.” A far different message was left on Friday on the voice mail of Mukhtar M. Ibrahim, a journalist in Minnesota who was born in Somalia: “Go back to where you came from,” the caller said, ending the message with a racial slur. It has been nearly a week since President Trump visited Minneapolis for a campaign rally. There, the president boasted to thousands of cheering supporters about curbing the flow of refugees into the country, and labelled Representative Ilhan Omar, a Somali refugee, “a disgrace.” When he described how Somalis had previously come to Minnesota in large numbers, some in the crowd booed. Protesters and supporters who traded angry taunts outside the rally have long since gone home, and the arena has gone back to hosting basketball. Still, the president’s rhetoric about this city’s large Somali-American population has lingered, bringing forth new displays of compassion but also of hostility. “This creates tension, this creates fear, this creates anxiety for many people,” said Mohamud Noor, a Democratic member of the Minnesota House of Representatives who was born in Somalia. The president, Mr. Noor added, had signalled to his supporters that “now it’s O.K. to discriminate against Somalis.”
Mr. Trump’s speech in Minneapolis, a liberal stronghold in a politically mixed state, thrust the region’s tens of thousands of Somali residents into an unwanted national spotlight. “For the president of the United States, the most powerful man in the world, to single you out as dangerous hurts,” said Abdisalam Adam, an assistant principal in nearby St. Paul who said he got phone calls on the night of the rally from frustrated fellow Somali-Americans. In the days since, he said, he has urged friends to go out in groups and to report any incidents of harassment to the authorities. Mr. Trump had spoken critically of members of Minnesota’s Somali community before, including on the eve of the 2016 election, when he called them a “disaster.” After narrowly losing the state of Minnesota that year, Mr. Trump has said that he sees an opportunity to flip the state in 2020, and he has suggested that Ms. Omar’s new prominence can help him accomplish that.
Jennifer Carnahan, the chairwoman of the Minnesota Republican Party, said she believed that Mr. Trump’s remarks at the rally had been sensationalized and taken out of context. Ms. Carnahan said it was fair game for the president and the crowd to voice their distaste for Ms. Omar, who during her short tenure in Congress has become a hero of the progressive left but has also made remarks that many consider anti-Semitic. “Our party and the people that support the president get a really unfair and bad rap sometimes,” Ms. Carnahan said, adding, “Our party is not against Somalis.” Ms. Carnahan and other Republicans also defended the president’s policy of placing refugees in a city only after consulting with local officials. On Twitter, Paul Gazelka, a Republican state senator, pointed to longstanding tensions over resettlement in St. Cloud, an hour’s drive from Minneapolis, and said “that may be why some booed” at the mention of Somalis. “Trump offered more local control,” Mr. Gazelka wrote. “That is a solution that works.” For his part, Jacob Frey, the mayor of Minneapolis, signed a proclamation on the night of the president’s speech, declaring it “Love Trumps Hate Day.” Mr. Frey said he would gladly take more refugees. “We welcome them,” he said. “In fact, we need them.”…….. |
