October 31, 2018 | Daily Monitoring Report.
Recent Outcome Of CIC Meeting In Garowe Is An Unattainable Dream – Puntland Deputy President
31 October – Source: Hiiraan Online – 215 Words
Puntland Deputy President Abdihakin Haji Omar Amey has once again differed with his boss President Abdiweli Mohamed Ali Gaas, and lashed out at the outcome of the recent Council of Interstate Cooperation (CIC) meeting held in Garowe. The Deputy President said; “I see the outcome of the meeting as an unachievable dream which has astounded every Somali citizen. I can conclude that it was an ill-advised decision reached in haste,” said Amey, while talking to the Mogadishu-based Radio Kulmiye.
He accused the federal state leaders of being responsible for the political tension in the country. Meanwhile, he welcomed the recent decision taken by the Chief Minister of Galmudug Sheikh Ahmed Shakir in dismissing the Garowe outcome. “I hugely laud my friend Sheikh Ahmed Shakir for his bold decision. I agree with him that dialogue is the only option to end the rift,” he said. Amey also welcomed military commanders in Garowe who have also opposed the Garowe meeting and were subsequently fired by President Gaas.
This is not the first time that the DP of Puntland has opposed decisions arrived at by his boss, a move that demonstrates internal rifts among the top leadership of the federal state. The regional governments have accused the federal government of creating political crisis in their respective states.
Key Headlines
- Recent Outcome Of CIC Meeting In Garowe Is An Unattainable Dream – Puntland Deputy President (Hiiraan Online)
- President Farmajo Jets Off To South Sudan (Halbeeg News)
- SNA-AMISOM Forces Seize Daynunaye Town Bay Region (Goobjoog News)
- The Military Establishment Shouldn’t Interfere With The SW Elections Warns Military Commander (Hiiraan Online)
- Once A Refugee Somali-American Appears Headed To U.S. Congress (Reuters)
- Unregistered Somali Refugees In Kenya Unable To Access Basics In Dadaab Camps (Radio Ergo)
NATIONAL MEDIA
President Farmajo Jets Off To South Sudan
31 October – Source: Halbeeg News – 175 Words
President Mohamed Abdullahi Farmajo jetted out of the country to Juba, South Sudan, this morning. The President and his delegation are scheduled to attend a ceremony marking a peace agreement arrived at by President Salva Kiir of South Sudan and his former deputy President and rival, Dr Riek Machar in the Ethiopian capital of Addis Ababa.
During his stay in South Sudan, President Farmajo is also expected to hold separate meetings with other leaders attending the event in Juba. In June this year, President Farmajo attended a summit meeting of the Intergovernmental Authority on Development ( IGAD), which discussed the situation in South Sudan.
The IGAD summit came hours after a meeting between President Salva Kiir of South Sudan and his rival Riek Machar. President Kiir and Dr Machar met for the first time in two years in Addis Ababa for talks hosted by the new Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed. In late June, South Sudan’s President Salva Kiir and signed a peace agreement with his political rival in Khartoum, the capital of Sudan.
SNA-AMISOM Forces Seize Daynunaye Town, Bay Region
31 October – Source: Goobjoog News – 180 Words
The Somalia National Army (SNA) backed by AMISOM forces on Tuesday morning took over the Daynunay area of Bay region from the Al-Shabaab group, which has been in control of the town over the past weeks. The government forces have in the recent days been conducting operations against the Al-Shabaab in the region and have successfully seized several other areas from the Al-Shabaab group.
The government soldiers, who are currently in control of Daynuunaye town, have now set a base in the area. General Ibrahim Yarow, the force commander in the 60th Division, told the media that the areas they had seized from the Al-Shabaab were secure and safely under the control of the SNA and the Ethiopian forces serving under AMISOM.
He added that they will continue to increase the security operations in all parts of the region to flush out the Al-Shabaab. The group, which is fighting in the southern part of Somalia routinely targets AU forces and government bases in the country. The Daynuunaye town is approximately 26 km to Baidoa the city centre of Bay region.
The Military Establishment Shouldn’t Interfere With The SW Elections, Warns Military Commander
31 October – Source: Hiiraan Online – 163 Words
The military commander of the 60th division of the Somali National Armed Forces, General Ibrahim Yarow Isaq has directed his men not to interfere with the forthcoming elections and urged them to fully commit themselves to execute their constitutional obligations. With just 17 days to the Southwest presidential poll, reports of security forces involvement in the ongoing electioneering activities in Baidoa have emerged, thus the warning from the SNA commander.
General Yarrow said the army has nothing to do with the elections and other related issues like, pertaining to the elections. Their work, he stressed, was to maintain security: “I ordered the commanders, their assistants and the officers to avoid visiting election sites. Our work is to provide security and any soldier found involving himself in election-related affairs will face stern actions in accordance with the law”.
The commander’s call comes amid charged political atmosphere in Baidoa, coupled with allegations towards the government for its alleged support and financing of certain presidential candidates.
INTERNATIONAL MEDIA
Once A Refugee, Somali-American Appears Headed To U.S. Congress
31 October – Source: Reuters – 615 Words
The Democratic state legislator is heavily favored to win her Minneapolis-based district over Republican Jennifer Zielinski in the Nov. 6 congressional elections, which could make her one of the first Muslim women elected to the U.S. House of Representatives. Omar, a 36-year-old naturalized American citizen, said she is running for office to make sure fewer people have to struggle with the daily necessities of life, something she was shocked to find when she arrived in the United States as a refugee with her family at age 12. “I did not expect to come to the United States and go to school with kids who were worried about food as much as I was worried about it in a refugee camp,” Omar said in an interview.
An Omar win would not affect the balance of power in the House, where her party needs to win 23 seats to take a majority, because she would succeed fellow Democrat Keith Ellison, the first Muslim elected to Congress in 2006. Ellison is stepping down to run for Minnesota state attorney general. She is campaigning on policies embraced by the most liberal wing of the Democratic Party – universal healthcare, free college tuition, robust public housing – that are popular in a district that has not elected a Republican to the House since 1962.
Omar made history two years ago when she became the first Somali-American in the country to win a seat in a state legislature, unseating a 44-year incumbent Democrat along the way. No Somali-American has ever served in the U.S. Congress. That same night, Republican Donald Trump won the presidency after a campaign in which he called for a ban on all Muslims entering the United States. Trump has since banned people from Omar’s native Somalia and several other Muslim-majority countries from entering the United States, citing national security concerns.
OPINION, ANALYSIS & CULTURE
“I have been relying on other refugees in the camp for survival since I came back and I am hopeful that one day I will be registered,”
Unregistered Somali Refugees In Kenya Unable To Access Basics In Dadaab Camps
30 October – Source: Radio Ergo – 591 Words
Over 10,000 Somali refugees, who have been denied legal refugee status in northern Kenya’s Dadaab camps, are lacking access to basics such as food, shelter, and healthcare. The UN’s refugee agency UNHCR reports that 10,454 Somali refugees, uprooted from their homes by drought and the threat of Al-Shabaab, have found way into the camps in recent months, where there is no registration process enabling them to access identity documents.
According to UNHCR’s head of operations in Dadaab, Jean Bosco Rushatsi, 1,800 of the new arrivals were among refugees who had returned to Somalia from the camps under a voluntary repatriation initiative. Sharif Nurey, a mother of eight who has not been registered, lacks access to the goods and services provided by aid agencies including food, shelter, and healthcare. She has been living in IFO camp for the last two years since returning from Dinsor town in southern Somalia’s Bay region. She had left Dadaab prior to that in 2013 to try to rebuild her life back home. Sharif said she fled Dinsor again because of insecurity and drought.
Speaking to Radio Ergo, Sharif said the seasonal rains which started recently destroyed her shanty hut made of old rags, clothes, and sticks. “For the last two nights, my children and have slept under this leaky hut as rains pound the camp,” she said. She was left with no option but to beg from her other refugees who are registered to receive food rations, even though they receive very little themselves.
For the last two months, UNHCR has been negotiating with the Kenyan government to give the unregistered refugees temporary cards to access urgent support. However, the UN agency cannot fully accommodate the refugees unless the government overturns the ban it imposed in 2016 on the registration of new arrivals. After a long struggle, Sharif was given a temporary card by UNHCR to get food but she has not been given access to other services including shelter and health care. “Now I got some millet and oil with the card I was given, although the food is not enough but it helped us to fill our stomachs,” she noted. Sharif and thousands of other families every morning go to the office of UNHCR hoping that they will be registered.
Duniya Abdikadir Arif, another undocumented refugee, has been living with the family of a relative in Hagardera camp since 2016. “Previously I used to sleep at the compound of the family but with the rains now, I share the room with the family of five,” said Duniya, a widow with six children, who fled El-Barde town in 2017.
Habiba Mohamed Ibrahim was among thousands of Somalis who were voluntarily repatriated back to Somalia from Dadaab. But then the drought struck, and she lost 50 goats in 2017, forcing her to cross the border to Kenya again. “I have been relying on other refugees in the camp for survival since I came back and I am hopeful that one day I will be registered,” said Habiba, who made herself a flimsy hut as a shelter in Ifo camp.
TOP TWEETS
@SMDCMedia: Police in Somalia are hunting for the gunmen who shot dead a local journalist, Mr Abdullahi Mohamed Hashi, on the outskirts of Mogadishu late on Saturday.http://smdc.or.ke/index.php/
@HarunMaruf: #Somalia: Military commander of the 60th Division General Ibrahim Yarow tells the military not to interfere in upcoming elections. “It’s none of your business who gets elected, work with whoever is elected,” he said, with just 18 days until Southwest regional elections are held.
@DrBeileh: Glad to have welcomed @worldbank #SomaliaCountry Director Bella Bird to @MofSomalia offices today. We had a good discussion on the ongoing successes of fiscal reforms.We will soon be signing the$80 million Grant Agreement at the @somalipm‘s offices. It is a good day for Somalia.
@mpfsomalia: #IDA grants, the first in decades, reflect good reform progress in #Somalia. Grants will be used for health & education for all regions, using the stringent accountability mechanisms of the @pfmrcu project
@BrookingsGlobal: Since 2005, the three countries with the highest child mortality rates in the world—Somalia, Chad, and the Central African Republic—have experienced a full 27% reduction https://brook.gs/2yPYXua
@MuhyadinR: Hargeisa smugglers reveal insights into the sordid business of human trafficking of Somali migrants. Reported by @RadioErgo journalist in Hargeisa Ilyas Abdi@IbnuDable https://www.radioergo.org/
@ShabelleMedia: Warplanes carry out an airstrike in southern Somalia http://radioshabelle.com/
IMAGE OF THE DAY
Special Representative of the Chairperson of the AU Commission Amb. Francisco Madeira accompanied by UN envoy in Somalia Nicholas Haysom, during a meeting with Hirshabelle president Mohamed Abdi Waare in Mogadishu.
Photo: UNSOM