Category Archives: Somalia

Leak reveals UK Foreign Office discussing aid cuts of more than 50%

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Internal reports show projected cuts including 59% in South Sudan, 60% in Somalia and 67% in Syria

Some of the poorest and most conflict-ridden countries in the world will have their UK aid programmes cut by more than half, according to a leaked report of discussions held in the last three weeks among Foreign Office officials.

The cuts include slashing the aid programme to Somalia by 60% and to South Sudan by 59%. The planned cut for Syria is reported at 67% and for Libya it is 63%. Nigeria’s aid programme would be cut by 58%.

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‘Falling off a cliff’: pandemic crippling world’s most fragile states, finds report

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The world’s poorest are becoming poorer as the impact of Covid compounds existing crises, says Disaster Emergency Comittee

Thousands could starve in the world’s most fragile states as the pandemic comes on top of existing crises, warns a new report today which found aid workers are deeply pessimistic about the coming year.

The survey of aid workers by the Disaster Emergency Committee (DEC) found that they believed humanitarian conditions were at their worst in a decade.

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Somalia leaders fail to reach deal on elections

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Deadline to choose new president likely to be missed after negotiations collapse

Somalia’s leaders have failed to break a deadlock over the country’s elections, with no clear path to a vote just days before the government’s mandate expires.

The fragile country is likely to miss the 8 February deadline for choosing a new president after days of negotiations between the central government and federal states collapsed on Friday.

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Deadly suicide attack in Mogadishu claimed by al-Shabaab

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Motorcycle bomber targets Turkish construction company, killed at least five people and injuring 14

A suicide bombing in Mogadishu has killed at least five people, the Turkish health minister has said.

The al-Shabaab group, which is linked to al-Qaida, claimed responsibility for the attack on Saturday in the Somali capital in a post from its Shahada news agency. The group often targets Mogadishu with suicide bombings and other attacks.

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Poor data protection could put lives at risk, say Somalia aid workers

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‘Extremely dangerous’ if personal information needed to process mobile payments is lost or falls into wrong hands, say staff

The rapid upscaling of digital technology use by international groups in Somalia is causing concern about the risk to the people whose data is being collected.

The coronavirus pandemic has accelerated the use of programming by humanitarian organisations to deliver aid, but local staff working with several different NGOs say the organisations are not thinking enough about data protection or obtaining informed consent.

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They risked all to cross the Red Sea. Now a cruel fate awaits in Yemen

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Fleeing Ethiopia and Somalia, refugees made their way across the world’s busiest migration route, only to be left in the hands of smugglers in a lawless land

Saudi Arabia was Tigrit’s dream: a place where she could find work as a cleaner or maid, and send money back to her husband and young daughter in Ethiopia. Now, like hundreds of thousands of East Africans who have left home and travelled across the Red Sea in search of a better life, she finds herself stranded in Yemen instead.

“We’re stuck. I don’t have food or money for phone credit to call home. I don’t have anything,” she said, sitting on the floor in a building site with no electricity or running water on the edge of the desert.

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Trump orders US to pull troops from Somalia

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Nearly all of 700 troops will leave over next few months follow president’s latest order with short notice

The US will pull out nearly all its estimated 700 troops in Somalia over the next few months, the latest in a series of short-notice withdrawals ordered by Donald Trump in his last few weeks in power.

A Pentagon statement on Friday said that some of the troops would be repositioned in neighbouring countries while others – it did not say how many – would leave the region altogether.

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CIA officer killed in Somali raid on suspected al-Shabaab bomb-maker

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Unnamed American died alongside four Somali officers when extremists detonated a car bomb

A CIA officer died during a raid in Somalia last month targeting a key extremist thought to be responsible for an attack that killed an American soldier in Kenya last year, local intelligence officials have told the Guardian.

The officer was deployed alongside Somali and US special forces during the operation at Gendershe, a coastal village about 30 miles south-west of Mogadishu, and died when fighters from the al-Shabaab extremist movement detonated a car bomb minutes after the raid began on 6 November, the official said.

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War crimes: former minister reveals why Canada disbanded its special forces after scandal

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The drastic step was judged the best way to fix systemic problems after an affair similar to allegations against Australian forces in Afghanistan

A former Canadian defence minister who disbanded his nation’s special forces regiment in the wake of a war crimes scandal similar to that now facing Australia says the drastic step was the only way to fix systemic cultural problems and repair reputational damage.

The parallels between Canada’s so-called Somalia affair and the allegations against Australian troops in Afghanistan are striking.

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A Girl from Mogadishu review – tragedy and joy in a daring escape

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This based-on-fact story of a teenager who flees war in Somalia to become a crusading activist against FGM is earnest but effective drama

Inspired by real events, this earnest but effective drama depicts how Ifrah Ahmed (played as a teenager by Malaika Herrador, and as an adult by Aja Naomi King) escaped Somalia during a war in 2006, made it to Ireland where she was eventually granted asylum, and then went on to become a crusading activist against female genital mutilation. It’s certainly a remarkable story, one full of tragedy, adventure, suspense and even moments of joy, especially in the latter half when Ahmed finds a community of friends and allies willing to help her quest.

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If Ethiopia descends into chaos, it could take the Horn of Africa with it

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As conflicts rapidly unfold in Ethiopia, Sudan, Somalia and Yemen, the US, UK and European states are being sidelined

The Ethiopian army’s assault on Tigray province marks a serious backwards step by the country’s prime minister, Abiy Ahmed, who has been feted internationally as a moderniser and Nobel peace prize winner. Abiy calls it a “law enforcement operation” – but he risks being blamed for an expanding refugee emergency and a burgeoning region-wide crisis.

An even bigger fear is the break-up of Ethiopia itself in a Libyan or Yugoslav-type implosion. The country comprises more than 80 ethnic groups, of which Abiy’s Oromo is the largest, followed by the Amhara. Ethnic Somalis and Tigrayans represent about 6% each in a population of about 110 million. Ethiopia’s federal governance structure was already under strain before this latest explosion.

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‘Confounding’: Covid may have already peaked in many African countries

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One explanation for virus not behaving as expected could be previous exposure to other infections, experts tell MPs

The coronavirus pandemic has peaked earlier than expected in many African countries, confounding early predictions, experts have told MPs.

Scientists do not yet know why, but one hypothesis is the possibility of people having pre-existing immunity to Covid-19, caused by exposure to other infections.

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‘A race against time’: the new law putting Somalia’s children at risk of marriage

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Child marriage in the country has increased during coronavirus – and now a newly-tabled bill would allow children as young as 10 to marry

Fardowsa Salat Mohamed was 15 when her cousin asked her parents for her hand in marriage. Her father did not hesitate to say yes. When Mohamed objected, her father asked her to choose between “a curse and a blessing”.

“That was not a choice for me, I was basically forced,” she says. “No girl would ever choose to be cursed by her parents so I had to accept the marriage,”

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Inside Somalia: how Covid-19 created a perfect storm in a humanitarian crisis

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Covid could be ‘the straw that breaks the camel’s back’ health workers warn. Photographers Fardosa Hussein and Ismail Taxta captured a country battling seemingly insurmountable odds

Considering the country was in the middle of a pandemic, the silence at the entrance to Mogadishu’s De Martini hospital felt almost numbing, the expected noise replaced by stillness in its deserted, sanitised halls.

It sent a chill through me as I arrived in May to capture the work being done at what was, until recently, the Somali capital’s only hospital taking coronavirus patients. It felt like a prison.

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If you felt cooped up in lockdown, think of refugees confined in camps | Moulid Hujale

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From panic buying to lack of freedom, the pandemic is an opportunity to understand the lives of those forced to flee

Covid-19 has transformed the world beyond imagination, affecting almost everyone in some way.

Yet for me the changes have felt familiar – from movement restrictions to quarantines, every measure taken to prevent the spread of the virus reminds me of what it means to live as a refugee in a camp.

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Mogadishu car bomb kills eight soldiers at military base

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Somalia-based al-Shabaab group claims blast that leaves 14 wounded

A car bomb has exploded at the gates of a military base in Mogadishu, killing at least eight soldiers and wounding 14.

The extremist group al-Shabaab, linked with al-Qaida, claimed responsibility via its radio arm, Andalus. The group often targets military sites in Mogadishu and controls large parts of southern and central Somalia, with little sign of being hampered by the coronavirus pandemic.

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Somalia removes prime minister in no-confidence vote

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170 of 178 MPs back motion against Hassan Ali Khaire for failing to move towards democratic elections

Somalia’s parliament removed the prime minister, Hassan Ali Khaire, from his post in a vote of no confidence on Saturday for failing to pave the way towards fully democratic elections, the speaker said.

A whopping 170 of parliament’s 178 MPs backed the no-confidence motion, and Khaire’s ouster was immediately endorsed by the president, Mohamed Abdullahi Farmajo, who had appointed him as prime minister in February 2017.

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‘You think that’s racist?’: the generational tension in Melbourne’s high-rise migrant families

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There is a schism between older African migrants – who think Australia is ‘the greatest country in the world’ – and those who came here young or grew up here

This is the fourth in a six-part series on life inside Melbourne’s high-rise public housing. Read the third part here.

Nor Shanino would get into big debates with his father, Idris, an Eritrean refugee, about the police and the country.

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Why coronavirus has placed millions more girls at risk of FGM

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As lockdowns linger and economies falter, girls who are out of school are at increased risk of being cut

Covid-19 has exposed just how much work remains to be done to wipe out female genital mutilation (FGM) around the world. Two million girls who would otherwise be safe from the practice are believed to be at risk over the next decade as a direct result of the virus.

As lockdowns linger and economies tumble, many families have been spurred into action over the fate of their daughters, using school closures to cut them and marry them off, campaigners say.

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‘Rolling emergency’ of locust swarms decimating Africa, Asia and Middle East

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Unseasonal rains have allowed desert pests to breed rapidly and spread across vast distances leaving devastation in their wake

Locust swarms threaten a “rolling emergency” that could endanger harvests and food security across parts of Africa and Asia for the rest of the year, experts warn.

An initial infestation of locusts in December was expected to die out during the current dry season. But unseasonal rains have allowed several generations of locust to breed, resulting in new swarms forming.

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