Category Archives: Somalia

‘Men don’t trust we’re strong enough’: Somali women push into fish industry

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Selling fish has enabled some to quadruple their usual earnings but sexist attitudes are harder to overcome

Every morning before sunrise, when most residents in the southern coastal city of Kismayo are asleep, Fardowsa Mohamed Ahmed, 32, goes to the beach to purchase fresh fish, which she will sell in the market.

Like most women in this business, she depends on men to catch the fish. Men dominate the fishing sector. It is considered “men’s work” in Somali society. But Ahmed is determined to push her way in.

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‘Finally, at last’: vulnerable migrants to leave Greece for UK

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Group including teenagers Walid and Mustafa will be reunited with relatives after grim odyssey

Until last week, Walid and Mustafa had never met. Owing to their disparate backgrounds, they might not have had anything in common, bar their age: both turned 18 this year.

But the fresh-faced, bright-eyed teenagers have been brought together by a common desire to escape danger in their respective homelands – Syria and Somalia – and rebuild lives shattered by war.

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Coronavirus could ‘smoulder’ in Africa for several years, WHO warns

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190,000 people could die on the continent in the coming 12 months, agency says

The Covid-19 pandemic could “smoulder” in Africa for several years after killing as many as 190,000 people in the coming 12 months, the World Health Organization has said.

The WHO warned last month that there could be 10m infections on the continent within six months, though experts said the pandemic’s impact would depend on governments’ actions.

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Somali medics report rapid rise in deaths as Covid-19 fears grow

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Concerns that official mortality counts in African countries are a big understatement

Medics, funeral workers and gravediggers in Somalia have reported an unprecedented surge of deaths in recent days amid growing fears that official counts of Covid-19 deaths reflect only a fraction of the virus’s toll in Africa .

So far Somalia, one of the poorest and most vulnerable countries on the continent, has announced an official total of 601 confirmed cases and 28 deaths.

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Ramadan in Somalia: fears coronavirus cases will climb as gatherings continue

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Government rejects claim by militant groups that the virus does not harm Muslims and imposes night-time curfew

Somalia has recorded a rise in coronavirus cases in the past week, with the majority of those affected reportedly young people.

So far there have been 237 confirmed cases and eight deaths in the country. A member of parliament and a state minister are among those who have died.

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‘Most of the men are your enemies’: one woman’s crusade in Somalia

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Ibado Mohammed Abdulle is a counsellor, friend and campaigner for women who have been made refugees in their own country by the impact of the climate crisis

The long, black hem of Ibado Mohammed Abdulle’s diya drags in the sand, creating mini tornadoes of dust under her sandals. At a circular fence of waist-high thorny bushes, she knocks on the metal sheet serving as a makeshift door. A woman’s face, partially hidden by a bright green hijab, appears. “Salaam Alaikum,” Abdulle says, “peace be upon you.”

Holding up a hand to the armed guards tasked with accompanying the visiting charity staff following her around the displacement camp, she instructs them to stay outside.

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‘Zero accountability’: US accused of failure to report civilian deaths in Africa

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US military vows to be more open about activities after allegations that teenager and farmer were killed in Somalia airstrikes

Faced with new allegations of killing civilians with drone strikes in Somalia, the US military has announced plans to make its operations across Africa more transparent.

Amnesty International accused the US military on Wednesday of providing “zero accountability” for civilian victims of airstrikes by its Africa command, Africom.

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Debt relief allows Somalia to rejoin global economy after 30-year exile

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IMF and World Bank sign off $5bn in assistance with help of bridge financing from Norway, Italy, the UK and the EU

Somalia’s debt will be slashed to a fraction of its current levels after almost $5bn (£4.1bn) of assistance was approved by the International Monetary Fund and World Bank.

A joint statement from the global financial institutions praised Somalia’s efforts at economic reform, allowing it to qualify for a debt relief programme and reintegrate into the global economy after 30 years.

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Mogadishu’s refugees ‘waiting for death’ as Covid-19 reaches Somalia

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Fears are growing about the spread of coronavirus in camps where few can afford soap, water is rare and social distancing impossible

In the Nabadoon camp on the outskirts of Mogadishu, Asho Abdullahi Hassan, a 40-year-old mother of seven, has heard about the coronavirus on the radio.

“I am very scared about this deadly virus. I only heard about it from the news. It is like we are waiting for death to come,” she says.

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African nations impose stricter measures as coronavirus spreads

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Governments warn disease will cause huge challenges for continent’s health services

Countries across Africa have imposed wide-ranging and stringent new measures as the coronavirus begins to spread more rapidly across the continent.

Though the continent is still far behind Europe and Asia in the total numbers of Covid-19 cases, the disease has now reached about half of its countries. Algeria has 48 confirmed cases, Egypt 110, while South Africa has 62, according to the World Health Organization and national governments on Monday. Other countries have fewer cases, mostly in single figures.

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Schools close in north-east Kenya after al-Shabaab targets teachers

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Authorities face criticism for withdrawing teaching staff from an already marginalised region where education is badly needed

A series of targeted killings of schoolteachers by a militia group in Kenya has seen an exodus of staff and the closure of hundreds of schools across the north-east of the country.

Thousands of teachers have left their posts in the past two months following several suspected al-Shabaab attacks in the region.

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Somalia edges closer to first democratic election in half a century

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Landmark law expected to replace clan system and lay groundwork for long-awaited ‘one person, one vote’ poll

The president of Somalia has signed a landmark federal law, paving the way for the country to hold its first popular election in half a century.

A long awaited “one person, one vote” election could be held by the end of the year.

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Wave of violence leaves journalists in Somalia ‘under siege’, says Amnesty

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Shootings, beatings and arbitrary arrests condemned as election candidates urged to protect freedom of expression

The increasingly hostile environment in Somalia has left journalists living in fear of both the government and militant groups, according to Amnesty International.

At least eight journalists have been killed since President Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed came to power in 2017, while others have survived assassination attempts or been targeted for arrests and censorship, the rights group has said.

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A humanitarian crisis looms in Africa unless we act fast to stop the desert locust

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The destructive migratory pest threatens catastrophe as it swarms through countries already plagued by food insecurity

A colleague at the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) tells a terrifying story about the desert locust.

In 2005 she visited farmers in Niger as they prepared to harvest their crops. Just hours later, a swarm of locusts swept through the area and destroyed everything. One month later, truckloads of families were forced to leave their homes because they had nothing to eat.

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Mogadishu left reeling as conflict and climate shocks spark rush to capital

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Forced from their homes by floods and fighting, 800,000 people have crammed into informal settlements in the Somali capital. Now efforts are afoot to bolster local resources

The number of Somalians being pushed out of the countryside and into the capital Mogadishu has reached an unprecedented high, putting pressure on the city’s already poor infrastructure and threatening its faltering recovery from three decades of conflict.

More than 800,000 internally displaced people dwell in informal settlements across Mogadishu, according to the office of the mayor. They are crammed into makeshift shelters with little or no sanitation and limited access to the most basic services. There are “critical” levels of malnutrition, according to an assessment by Somalia’s food security and nutrition analysis unit.

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Billions of locusts swarm through Kenya – in pictures

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Huge locust swarms in east Africa are the result of extreme weather swings and could prove catastrophic for a region still reeling from drought and deadly floods. Dense clouds of the ravenous insects have spread from Ethiopia and Somalia into Kenya, in the region’s worse infestation in decades

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‘Food prices shot up’: floods spark a scramble for survival in east Africa

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From Somalia to South Sudan, torrential rains have devastated crops and made roads impassable, sending the cost of food soaring

Before the floods hit her village, crumpling buildings, ripping out pathways and submerging swathes of land, Nurto Mohamed Hassan could buy a kilogram of rice for the equivalent of about 70p.

Now the cost is more than £1. This may not seem a lot in isolation but, for people with little money and families to feed, it is a significant rise.

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Aftermath of fatal truck bomb explosion in Mogadishu – video

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Dozens of people were killed, including many students, when a truck bomb exploded at a busy checkpoint in Somalia's capital on Saturday. The attack, one of the deadliest in the city's recent history, has not been claimed by any group; Al-Shabaab often carries out such attacks, but the al-Qaida-linked group was pushed out of Mogadishu several years ago.

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Truck bomb kills scores including many students in Mogadishu

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At least 79 dead and more than 100 injured after morning rush-hour blast in Somali capital

A truck bomb has exploded in central Mogadishu, killing at least 79 people including many university students, and injuring more than 100 in the deadliest attack on the Somali capital for more than two years.

The bomber struck during the Saturday morning rush hour, the start of Somalia’s working week. The mayor, Omar Mohamud Mohamed, told reporters at the blast site that most of those killed were civilians, including two Turkish citizens.

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Making waves: Dadaab refugee camp’s only female radio journalist

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Exiled Somali Kamil Ahmed says her job at Gargaar FM is more important than ever as the threat of closure hangs over the camp

Sitting in a small shipping container, Kamil Ahmed, 20, prepares to begin her live radio show.

“I feel like the whole community is waiting for me,” the only female reporter at the station says, flicking through her notebook.

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