The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) is suspending operations in southern Somalia, it announced Wednesday 6 January, saying that a spate of attacks have made it too dangerous to work there. More than one million people in the region are going hungry, according to the WFP. Reuters NewsAlert says that children are likely to be hurt the most by the suspension, with a sharp increase in malnutrition to be expected. The news is yet another blow to the region, where humanitarian agencies have found it increasingly hard, they say, to continue their work and where years of drought have been exacerbated because expected rains never arrived in November.
Links to other sites: ENS News Service, Reuters AlertNet, UN World Food Programme
A blast in the capital of Somalia, Mogadishu, killed three cabinet ministers and at least 18 other people Thursday 3 December, although AllAfrica, picking up the story from a UN humanitarian newsletter which cites a hospital source, puts the figure at 50 dead. The authors of the crime remain a mystery. A bomb exploded during a medical school graduation ceremony and suspicion quickly fell on an Islamist group, al Shabaab, but the group has denied it was involved. The extremist group has been locked in a power struggle with the Western-backed government, which the extremists accused of masterminding the blast, pointing out that the government itself has deep rifts. The US has called al Shabaab a proxy for al Qaeda in the region and Reuters reports that “Western security agencies say Somalia has become a safe haven for militants, including foreign jihadists, who are using it to plot attacks across the impoverished region and beyond.”
Canadian freelance journalist Amanda Lindhout and Australian photojournalist Nigel Brennan were freed Wednesday 25 Novmber after 16 months in captivity in Somalia, where both say they were tortured physically and mentally. Lindhout described her ordeal by phone to the Globe & Mail, saying that in her mind she escaped to Vancouver. Both say their families paid ransoms to the groups who abducted them.
Links to other sites: Canadian TV video, Herald Sun, Australia
Foreign Minister Carme Chacón said Wednesday that she will propose to EU foreign ministers meeting in Brussels next Monday and Tuesday that the EU’s anti-piracy campaign in the Indian Ocean off the coast of Somalia, Operation Atalanta, change its strategy, and that it blockade three ports that she says are the source of the pirate attacks in the area. Somali pirates use “mother ships” to travel vast distances to attack freighters in the shipping lanes joining Europe with Asia.
Somali pirates are currently holding 12 ships, including one Spanish ship, the Alakrana, with 36 crew aboard, captured 2 October. Two days later, A Spanish ship captured two presumed pirates who are being tried in Spain. From Somalia the pirates have demanded that they be released as part of a deal to release the ship and the crew. Spanish officials have said that one option would be to sign a prisoner exchange agreement with the Somali provisional government, which would allow the two pirates to serve out their sentence in Somalia, once they have been sentenced. AFP, El Pais (Spa)
The US embassy in Pretoria and consulates and other offices, including development aid offices, were closed 22 September due to a security threat. The source of the threat was not revealed by embassy spokesperson Sharon Hudson Dean. South African national police commissioner Bheki Cele told reporters in Cape Town, “Our intelligence world is dealing with it. It is under control.” A state department spokesman in Washington asked US citizens to be vigilant when in the vicinity of US government offices.
US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania were bombed simultaneously in 1998 with the loss of 224 lives and many more wounded. US military forces last week killed one of the main suspects in those attacks in a helicopter raid in Somalia. Militant Islamists fighting the Western-backed government in Somalia vowed revenge on the US for that attack. BBC, Mail&Guardian, South Africa
The Somali militant Islamist group, al Shabaab, holding a French security contractor since July, have said they will release him if France stops supporting the Western-backed government. They also demand the withdrawal of African Union peacekeepers, “especially the Burundians”, from the country, and an end to French anti-piracy patrols in the sea off the coast of Somalia. The French security contractor was kidnapped from his hotel in Mogadishu, Somalia along with a colleague, who managed to escape 26 August, and is now in France.
The demands come three days after US forces killed four men in the south of the country in a helicopter raid. The militants are battling a weak central government, which is struggling to hold onto parts of Mogadishu. Somalia has not had a functioning government since 1991. BBC, Reuters
A military raid on a car carrying suspected Islamist militants in southern Somalia has likely killed Saleh Ali Saleh Nabhan, a Kenyan-born man officials say was a senior member of al-Qaeda in Eastern Africa. Nabhan is believed to be responsible for a bomb attack on an Israeli-owned hotel in Mombasa, Kenya in 2002 which killed 15 people, and an attempt to shoot down an Israeli passenger plane flying out of Mombasa later that year. He may also have been involved in the US embassy bombings in Nairobi, Kenya and Dar-es-Salaam, Tanzania in 1998.
Witnesses say six helicopters flew into the Barawe district in southern Somalia, 250km south of the capital Mogadishu, which is controlled by Al-Shabaab rebels fighting for supremacy in Somalia. Two fired missiles on the car. At least four bodies were removed and two wounded people were taken away by the helicopters’ crew. Al-Jazeera, AllAfrica, BBC, GaroweOnline
A plane carrying 37 people reportedly remains under tight surveillance at Nairobi’s international airport in Kenya since it arrived late Saturday 5 September from the Seychelles, carrying what Kenya is calling pirates, and the government is negotiating with the Seychelles and Somali governments over the fate of the plane and its occupants. Kenya’s Daily Nation newspaper says the “pirates” had been released by the Seychelles government, but there is no explanation of why they were held by the Seychelles, and it notes that the passengers “were scheduled to disembark from the plane and enter Nairobi from where they would have either sneaked back into Somalia or remained in the country to enjoy their ill-gotten riches.” Background, “Who is fighting whom in Somalia”, Irin humanitarian news
Pirates holding a Taiwanese-flagged ship since 6 April off the coast of Somalia fired on a US Navy helicopter that was monitoring it, 26 August. The US Navy says that the helicopter was not hit and the crew did not return fire. The Win Far was captured 6 April and has been used by the pirates to launch attacks on other ships, most notably the US-flagged Maersk Alabama. That attack ended when Navy snipers killed three of the pirates holding the American captain. The coast off Somalia, which has had no functioning government since 1991, is particularly prone to piracy, according to the International Maritime Bureau which montitors piracy world-wide.
Police in Melbourne, Australia swooped on 19 properties around the city and arrested four men they say were plotting to storm Holsworthy army base northwest of Sydney with automatic weapons and kill as many soldiers as possible until they themselves were killed. The men, Australian nationals of Somali and Lebanese origin, are believed to be linked to militant Islamist group Al-Shabaab in Somalia, which is battling the Western-backed government. More than 400 police officers were involved in the early Tuesday 4 August operation. One of the men, Nayef El Sayed, aged 25, appeared in court and has been charged with terrorism offenses. A fifth man, arrested earlier for other reasons, was still being questioned. CNN, Sydney Morning Herald
Image ©2008 E Hockstein/UNHCR, on flickr.com
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Over 204,000 people have fled their homes in the northern suburbs of Mogadishu, Somalia to escape fighting since Islamist militants began their campaign eight weeks ago to gain control of the city, according to Geneva-based UNHCR (United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees). Local groups working with the UN agency say that fighting has claimed 105 lives and 380 wounded in the past week.
Somalia’s already difficult security situation is under more pressure after a suicide bomber killed the country’s security chief, Omar Hashi Aden, and 10 other people including Somali diplomats, at a hotel in Beledweyne, 400 km north of Mogadishu, near the border with Ethiopia. Al Shabab, presumed to have links to Al Qaeda, claimed the attack. They are one of several militant groups fighting the fragile government, which has United Nations support. Aid agencies say one-third of the population is unable to feed itself and needs outside help, reports the BBC. All Africa
At least eight people died 17 June when a mortar landed on a building in Somalia’s capital Mogadishu and up to a dozen more deaths were reported elsewhere in the city in the latest wave of fighting. Government forces are battling some 500 fighters from the hard-line Islamist Shabaab group in the city. Mogadishu’s police chief was also killed in an offensive on rebel positions. Various rebel factions control most of the south of the country along the border with Kenya. Aid agencies have said that Somalia’s internally displaced population is the largest in the world and that the dire security situation makes it very difficult to provide help. BBC, Reuters, Oxfam
Background: UNHCR
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – The total number of internally displaced persons (IDPs) in Pakistan now surpasses two million people since August 2008, according to Geneva-based UNHCR (UN High Commissioner for Refugees). The figures correspond to those being issued by Pakistan’s government.
The total number of IDPs fleeing the conflict in in northwest Pakistan in the Swat, Buner and Lower Dir districts, and registered by UNHCR since the beginning of the month is close to 1.5 million.
A spike in fighting on Tuesday, 12 May forced thousands of people from their homes in north Mogadishu, Somalia, Reuters reports. The wire service cites a local human rights agency reports 113 dead in the latest fighting between pro-government forces and the Shabaab (”Youth”) Islamist militants, which has forced 27,000 people to flee the city since last week.
Armed Somalian men released two aid workers, from Doctors without Borders, Tuesday 5 May. The pair had been kidnapped and held for a ransom, but according to local sources a ransom was not paid. Incidents like this have hindered the ability of relief workers to respond to the long-standing Humanitarian crisis in the country, according to an Al Jazeera report.
Geneva, Switzerland and Brussels, Belgium (GenevaLunch) - A Belgian doctor and Dutch medical worker who were abducted in Somalia 19 April were released 28 April, announced Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), for whom the two work.
An Italian cruise ship heading from South Africa to Italy has headed for Jordan as scheduled after fighting off a group of pirates off the coast of Somalia. The pirates, who arrived in a speedboat and fired at the ship were fought off by the ship’s security team, which fired bullets in the air and sprayed the pirates with water. BBC
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - The UNHCR (UN High Commissioner for Refugees) reports that 35 people drowned Wednesday off the coast of Yemen’s Abyan region in the Gulf of Aden, after one of two smugglers’ boats capsized. Some 220 people were making the passage from near Bossasso in Somalia, with 117 people on the boat that overturned.
Updated 23:35 with Kenyan man biting snake It’s the silly season for news again. Here are some of the latest shenanigans we human beings are up to, some worthy, some less so, some just plain intriguing. Switzerland looks relatively calm compared to the rest of the world.
- A woman driving a convertible in Olten, Switzerland, was attacked by four women in a car behind her, when she braked abruptly because of a cat in the road. The driver of the second car whistled and shouted abuse at the 22-year-old convertible driver before the others jumped out and attacked the first driver, pulling her hair, then bashing her head against the car. Le Matin, Fre
- Scotland’s Susan Boyle took a dream and ran with it: the 47-year-old unemployed charity worker fulfilled a promise to her mother and stood up on Britain’s Got Talent show, met derisive smiles head on and belted out a song that now has more than six million people watching her on YouTube (Ed. note: this is some voice!) (note just in from Evelyn Ralph and other fans from Scotland in Geneva: here is an even better YouTube version, this one viewed by 8 million – we do love a true winner)
- In Norway, a man was arrested for driving while having sex – 133 kph in a 100 zone, with his companion’s back blocked his view of the road. Sydney Morning Herald, Australia
Richard Phillips, the captain of the hijacked Maersk Alabama ship who has been held hostage for several days, jumped to freedom and was picked up the US Navy, which shot and killed three of his four captors. The fourth pirate was negotiating at the time, and was taken captive. Phillips in safe and uninjured, the US Navy says. CNN
Chart: UNHCR, "Asylum Levels and Trends in Industrialized Countries, 2008"
Geneva, Switzerland (Genevalunch) – Political turmoil in Afghanistan and Somalia increased the number of asylum seekers in 2008 for the second year running, according to the UNHCR (United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees). Iraq provided the largest number of applicants for asylum, 40,500, a 10 percent decrease from 2007.
Somali refugee: many children growing up in camps in Ethiopia, such as this girl in 2005, had never seen their homeland
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Mogadishu is the scene of both some of the heaviest recent fighting in Somalia, and the place where an estimated 40,000 internally displaced refugees are returning home, reports the UNHCR (United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees), resulting in heavy civilian casualties and renewed displacement.
Somalia’s President Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed has resigned, leaving the speaker of the parliament as acting president, with 30 days to elect a new president. All Africa reports that “fresh turmoil and uncertainty loom” with the president’s resignation coming just days after his prime minister resigned.
