Publications:
Reports and Documents for the 59th Executive Committee Plenary Session (August 2008) [access]
- The actual meetings are scheduled for 6-10 October 2008.
Selected Documents Relating to National Security and Counter-Terrorism Relevant to International Refugee Protection (UNHCR, July 2008) [text]
UNHCR Recommendations for the Ministerial Conference of the Euro-African Process on...
USAID/OFDA Assistance to Somalia - $47,077,637
USAID/FFP(2) Assistance to Somalia - $197,415,500
State/PRM(3) Assistance to Somalia - $20,100,000
Total USAID & State Humanitarian Assistance to Somalia:
$264,593,137
Click here to retreive the full report by the USAID, et, alt.
Source:......
In
Africa,
Warlords,
Arab World,
Health,
Somali Foreign Policy,
NFD,
Western Somalia (Ogaden),
Somalia Islamic Courts,
Ethiopian Invasion,
Col. Cabdullaahi Yuusuf Axmed,
UN,
Somalia,
food crisis,
humanitarian relief,
Hunger in Somalia,
OCHA,
National Security
PRESS RELEASE 0020/2008
Nairobi, 13 August 2008 – The United Nations Special Representative for Somalia, Ahmedou Ould-Abdallah, said he was very pleased that the two main Committees in the Djibouti Agreement are being convened this weekend. After consultations with the Transitional Federal Government and the Alliance for the Re-Liberation of Somalia, it was agreed that the Joint Security Committee (Article 8.) and the High Level Committee (Article 9) will meet in Djibouti from 16 – 18 August.
The two sides will have delegations attending each meeting. The Prime Minister Nur Hassan Hussein as well as the leaders of the ARS, Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed and Sharif Hassan Sheikh Adan plan to attend.
The international community, including diplomats from several countries and regional...
In
News,
Food Crisis Emergency,
Terrorism,
Somali Diaspora,
Somali Islamic Revolution,
Balkanizing Somalia,
Ahmedou Ould-Abdallah,
Somalia peace process,
The United Nations Special Representative for Somalia,
UN Political Office,
Africa,
Warlords,
Arab World,
Somali Foreign Policy,
Western Somalia (Ogaden),
Somalia Islamic Courts,
Ethiopian Invasion,
Col. Cabdullaahi Yuusuf Axmed,
UN,
National Security
Following is the latest news dispatch from the Somali besieged capital:
A former Somali commander and five other ministers, who had resigned after criticizing President Yusuf’s policies, have been killed. Colonel Ibrahim Hassan Isse, the ex-commander of Bali-Doogle Air Base and five other members of the cabinet who resigned four days ago, have been killed by masked gunmen in Afgoye town on Friday, Press TV Correspondent reported. Hassan Isse refused to work with the government on the grounds that the President was a puppet of the Ethiopians.
Source: Press......
The Relief Web released following short statistical report on northern regions of the Somali Republic.
Investments by returning refugees and remittances from those still abroad provide a lifeline to millions in the breakaway Somaliland Republic.
Here are some details about Somaliland:
GEOGRAPHY: Somaliland is about the size of England and Wales with an area of 137,600 sq km (68,000 sq. miles). It shares borders with Republic of Djibouti to the west, Ethiopia to the south and Somalia to the east.
POPULATION: The population of Somaliland is estimated at around 4.0 million.
CAPITAL: Hargeisa is the capital of Somaliland with an estimated population of 0.45 million. The other main towns are Burao, Borama, Berbera, Erigabo and Las Anod.
LANGUAGE: Somali is the official language. Arabic and...
In
Dar ul- Islam,
Somali Peace Process,
News,
Food Crisis Emergency,
Somali Islamic Revolution,
Balkanizing Somalia,
Warlords,
Somali Foreign Policy,
Western Somalia (Ogaden),
Ethiopian Invasion,
National Security
IRIN News reports:
Much of Somalia’s displaced population has scattered across rural villages, which are hard to reach because of rampant insecurity and limited resources, an international agency said, impeding aid delivery. CARE International, which distributed some 900MT of food to 12,000 IDPs in the southern town of Beletweyne two weeks ago, said its staff had failed to access rural areas. Instead, they relied on local partner agencies to do assessments. “The IDP population is mixed, with some households previously displaced from Mogadishu [the capital], and then there are [those] recently displaced out of Beletweyne town by fighting,” CARE said. Some of them were reportedly returning but others were moving farther away, as far as Tayeeglow district in Bakool region....
According to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Agency (FAO):
The general food security situation in Somali Region has deteriorated over the last two months due to cumulative effects of three failed consecutive rainy seasons, poor terms of trade coupled with the progressing dry “hagga” season. Humanitarian partners and elders are comparing the current drought situation to that of 1999/2000. The recently completed DPPA led multi-agency pastoral assessment team reported critical food security problems with records of massive livestock and human migration, reduced livestock births and production as well as increased prices of food.
Click here to view the full report by FAO. You may also like to click here more FAO reports on......
In
Pan Somalism,
Add new tag,
Greater Somalia,
Somali Peace Process,
Food Crisis Emergency,
Somali Islamic Revolution,
Balkanizing Somalia,
Africa,
Health,
Western Somalia (Ogaden),
Ethiopian Invasion,
Col. Cabdullaahi Yuusuf Axmed,
National Security
According to a Press Pelease by the European Commision:
The European Commission has allocated a further €21 million in humanitarian aid for the Horn of Africa: Assistance is being provided to vulnerable populations in Somalia (€13m), Eritrea (€4m) and Ethiopia (€4m). So far in 2008, the Commission has provided nearly €120 million in humanitarian aid, including food aid, to needy people in the Horn of Africa (Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia and Uganda). The funds are channelled through the Humanitarian Aid department (ECHO), under the responsibility of Commissioner Louis Michel.
The Press Release went on by saying:
The Commission’s assistance will focus on rural populations and internally displaced people (IDPs). It addresses core humanitarian needs, with emergency relief...
In
Immigration,
Humanitarian Aid,
Development Issues,
News,
Food Crisis Emergency,
Somali Islamic Revolution,
Africa,
Warlords,
Somali Foreign Policy,
Western Somalia (Ogaden),
Somalia Islamic Courts,
Ethiopian Invasion,
Somalia,
National Security
The London based Iranian Press TV reports:
Four Ethiopian soldiers were killed in heavy clashes with the Union of Islamic Court (UIC) fighters north of the Somali capital Mogadishu. A Press TV correspondent, reporting from Mogadishu, says the fighting between the Ethiopian troops and the UIC fighters is ongoing in the Industrial Street. According to an eye-witness at least six mortars landed in the Pasta Base in north Mogadishu killing 4 Ethiopian soldiers and injuring several others. In a telephone interview with Press TV the UIC spokesman, Abdirahim Isse Addow, confirmed that the UIC has launched two strong attacks on Somali government troops backed by Ethiopian soldiers. Somalia has been without an effective central government since President Siad Barre was overthrown in 1991. In 2006,...
In
Islamic World,
Ethiopian Invassion,
Islam under siege,
Dar ul- Islam,
Somali Peace Process,
Terrorism,
Somali Islamic Revolution,
Africa,
Warlords,
Arab World,
Western Somalia (Ogaden),
Somalia Islamic Courts,
Ethiopian Invasion,
Col. Cabdullaahi Yuusuf Axmed,
Somalia,
National Security
According to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs:
Acute malnutrition is a chronic emergency all over the country. Families who have been displaced for years due to the political conflict require urgent assistance. Pastoralists in some areas have lost half of their herds. In southern Somalia, historically the country’s breadbasket, production of staple foods (such as sorghum and maize) has fallen by up to 50 percent because of the protracted drought.
With a $3 million CERF allocation, the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) is treating acute malnutrition in displaced children under five and vulnerable host Populations by handing out Plumpy’doz (a compound of vegetable fat, peanut paste, sugar, skimmed milk powder, malto-dextrine, and complex vitamins and...
In
Gender and Dev.,
Personal,
Development Issues,
Somali Peace Process,
News,
Food Crisis Emergency,
Somali Islamic Revolution,
Africa,
Warlords,
Western Somalia (Ogaden),
Somalia Islamic Courts,
Ethiopian Invasion,
Col. Cabdullaahi Yuusuf Axmed,
National Security
TFG troops supporting the continuation of the Ethiopian occupation of Somalia came under heavy fire in north Mogadishu as the country is thrown more into anarchy at the cost of more civilian lives.
Click here to view the full dispatch by the Press TV.
Click here for further news dispatches from......
In
Dar ul- Islam,
Food Crisis Emergency,
Terrorism,
Somali Islamic Revolution,
Africa,
Warlords,
Arab World,
Somali Foreign Policy,
Western Somalia (Ogaden),
Somalia Islamic Courts,
Ethiopian Invasion,
Col. Cabdullaahi Yuusuf Axmed,
National Security
According to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs’ “Situation Reports” (No. 30, 01 Aug 2008):
More than 150 children have been killed or injured through indiscriminate shelling, bombings and crossfire in the past year. In a press statement issued on 31 July, Christian Balslev-Olesen, UNICEF Representative to Somalia, said, ‘the current environment of conflict, displacement and insecurity in Southern and Central Somalia has a serious negative impact on children’s and young people’s long-term psychosocial welfare and health development.’ During the reporting week alone, seven children died in the ongoing battles in Mogadishu - five as they were fleeing from school and two while they were playing football on a public pitch....
In
Commentary,
Cali Maxmed Geedi,
Somali Peace Process,
News,
Terrorism,
Somali Islamic Revolution,
Africa,
Warlords,
Western Somalia (Ogaden),
Somalia Islamic Courts,
Ethiopian Invasion,
Col. Cabdullaahi Yuusuf Axmed,
National Security
The Missionary International Service News Agency reports:
At least 10 civilians, including a woman and a child, were killed after an Ethiopian attack in a northeastern quarter of Mogadishu. Witnesses said that 12 other people were wounded after a mortar shell exploded near a group of 40 civilians that were looking for refuge behind the home. Last night the nearby military base in Hurwa quarter was attacked. Today’s victims add to the nine from night in Mogadishu as fighting continued between armed militias and Ethiopian troops, backing the Somali transition government, which has been often denounced by human rights groups and by Somalis themselves of carrying out veritable reprisals against the population.
I think it is time to file war crimes case at the International Criminal...
The Associated Press reports:
Mortar shells slammed into a residential area in Somalia’s capital, killing at least 10 people — including a mother and her child, witnesses and a hospital official said Tuesday.
The bloodshed Monday came as Ethiopian troops backing Somalia’s shaky government battled Islamic insurgents who have been fighting an Iraq-style guerrilla war for more than a year. Thousands of civilians have been killed.
“There were 40 of us gathered under a wall to shield us from the mortars, but one landed near us,” Mogadishu resident Shamsa Kheyre told The Associated Press from her hospital bed.
Kheyre said she saw six bodies — including a mother and her young son. Another resident, Shekhey Nur Ahmed, said he and his friends collected the bodies of...
According to the U.S. State Deaprtment:
The Office of Weapons Removal and Abatement in the U. S. Department of State’s Bureau of Political-Military Affairs has launched a $1.4 million conventional weapons destruction program, which will also include the clearance of landmines and explosive remnants of war throughout heavily affected areas of northern Somalia.
This initiative is being carried out through grants to MAG America and The HALO Trust.
MAG will destroy stockpiles of conventional weapons collected from three military camps in Puntland, a region with 2.4 million people located in northern Somalia. The grant will also fund the continued deployment of a MAG explosive ordnance disposal (EOD) team tasked with identifying and destroying new stockpiles of munitions. Additionally, MAG...
Click here to view a transcript from a meeting held on 19 June 2008 at Chatham House, London,......
In
Commentary,
Pan Somalism,
Dar ul- Islam,
Somali Peace Process,
Food Crisis Emergency,
Somali Islamic Revolution,
Warlords,
Arab World,
Ethiopian Invasion,
Col. Cabdullaahi Yuusuf Axmed,
National Security
Dominic Pkalya of the University for Peace writes:
When the Islamic Courts Union (ICU) was driven out of Mogadishu in December 2006 by a combination of Ethiopian and the Transitional Federal Government forces, many pundits were quick to note that Somalia has once again squandered another chance of pacification and statehood.
This was based on the understanding that for the six-month period starting in June and ending in December 2006 in which the ICU was in control of Mogadishu and much of central and southern Somalia, a hitherto unprecedented period of peace, order and security was realized. In other words, the security situation was getting much better in this swathe of land that had only known and lived with over 15 years of statelessness, insecurity, clan feuds, thriving warlordism...
According to the United Nations:
High levels of malnutrition and the difficulties of delivering aid make Somalia the world’s most pressing humanitarian crisis, the U.N. refugee agency’s representative there said on Tuesday. More than 1 million people have fled their homes in Somalia, which is convulsed by fighting between Ethiopian-backed government forces, Islamist insurgents and an assortment of warlords. “I’ve never seen anything like Somalia before,” Guillermo Bettocchi, representative of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, said during a visit to London. “The situation is very severe. It is the most pressing humanitarian emergency in the world today — even worse than Darfur,” he told reporters, referring to the war in western...
Jeffrey Gettleman of the New York Times sent a dispatch from the Somali caiptal and says:
The trouble started when government soldiers went to the market and, at gunpoint, began to help themselves to sacks of grain last week. Islamist insurgents poured into the streets to defend the merchants. The government troops took heavy casualties and retreated all the way back to the presidential palace, supposedly the most secure place in the city. It, too, came under fire. Mohamed Abdirizak, a top government official, crouched on a balcony at the palace, with bullets whizzing over his head. He had just given up a comfortable life as a development consultant in Springfield, Va. His wife thought he was crazy. Sweat beaded on his forehead.
“I feel this slipping away,” he said.
By its own...
Galal Nassar of the Egyptian Al Ahram Weekly writes:
US bombers began pounding away at Somali positions as battles escalated between the Somali resistance and the combined forces of the invading Ethiopian army and the Somali interim government. Hardly a day passes without a bombing or assassination in Baidoa, capital of the interim government. The Americans are using their usual excuse: they are trying to kill Al-Qaeda leaders. Somalia’s Islamic resistance seems to have mastered the art of guerrilla warfare, taking control of small towns then abandoning them and disappearing into the population. It is a tactic designed to baffle and frustrate a regular army trying to fight a symmetric war. Where exactly is the enemy? Meanwhile, the Ogaden National Liberation Front (ONLF) and the...
In
Pan Somalism,
Dar ul- Islam,
Somali Peace Process,
Africa,
Arab World,
Somali Foreign Policy,
Western Somalia (Ogaden),
Somalia Islamic Courts,
Ethiopian Invasion,
Col. Cabdullaahi Yuusuf Axmed,
National Security
Somalis are running from their country in despair, unfortunately, there is no place for many of them to go. Above picture shows Somali women heading to the closed Kenyan (Somali NFD) border.
Copy Right: Al Ahram......
According to the United Nations News Srvice:
About 90,000 children in war-ravaged Somalia could die in the next few months without immediate supplementary nutrition and therapeutic feeding, an official with the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) said today, calling for stepped-up international support.
Due to a lack of adequate funding, the agency – which is urgently appealing for $10 million for nutritional, water and sanitation programmes – said it maybe be forced to close its nutritional centres and cease delivering drinking water in two weeks.
Click here to view the full story on the UN News......
Edith M. Lederer of the Associated Press writes:
Somalia’s transitional government urged the Security Council on Friday to speed up its planning for the possible deployment of a U.N. peacekeeping force to replace African Union troops in the war-wracked nation. Somalia’s U.N. Ambassador Elmi Ahmed Duale endorsed a recent appeal by African heads of state to the council “to urgently take steps for the early deployment of United Nations peacekeeping operations to further enhance peace in Somalia.”
Ms. Lederer went on by saying:
Somalia has not had a functioning government since clan-based warlords toppled dictator Mohamed Siad Barre in 1991 and then turned on each other, sinking the poverty-stricken nation of 7 million into chaos. Its weak transitional government,...
In
Commentary,
Pan Somalism,
Dar ul- Islam,
Somali Peace Process,
Africa,
Arab World,
Somali Foreign Policy,
Somalia Islamic Courts,
Ethiopian Invasion,
Col. Cabdullaahi Yuusuf Axmed,
National Security
...
Better outcomes: the way forward, improving the care of unaccompanied asylum seeking children (UK Home Office, Jan. 2008) [text]
Children and armed conflict: report of the Secretary-General, A/62/609–S/2007/757 (UN General Assembly, Security Council, Dec. 2007) [text]
Climate change and forced migration, New Issues in Refugee Research no. 153 (UNHCR, Jan. 2008) [text]
The Externalisation of...
In
tanzania,
Angola,
children,
humanitarian assistance,
armed conflict,
environmental degradation,
unaccompanied minors,
asylum policy,
climate,
reintegration,
Africa,
National Security,
European Union
Hosted by the Forced Migration & Refugee Studies Program at the American University in Cairo, the 11th IASFM conference starts Sunday and continues through the 10th. The theme of the conference is "Refugees and Forced Migration at the Crossroads: Forced Migration in a Changing World."
Looking ahead, several meetings are scheduled in February:
ICVA Conference 2008: The Essential Humanitarian...
Xan Rice, East Africa correspondent of the Guardian News paper writes:
The Islamist-led resistance in Somalia is growing in scale and aggression, with insurgents openly taking on Ethiopian troops and African Union peacekeepers in the capital Mogadishu, in fighting that has killed dozens, possibly hundreds, in the past three weeks.
Mr. Rice went on saying:
Few people believe that the situation is about to get better. Several experts interviewed by the Guardian say that the insurgents are becoming more powerful. A military analyst and a western diplomat to Somalia, neither of whom wished to be named, warned that the angry mood and conditions that allowed an Islamist movement to defeat a gang of warlords and take power in Mogadishu last year were returning. “We are on a merry-go-round...
In
Islamic World,
Pan Somalism,
Somali Peace Process,
Food Crisis Emergency,
Terrorism,
Somali Islamic Revolution,
Africa,
Somali Foreign Policy,
Somalia Islamic Courts,
Ethiopian Invasion,
Col. Cabdullaahi Yuusuf Axmed,
National Security
Ramzy Baroud writing for the Pan Arab Al Jazeera Television Netwotes says:
The people of Somalia are enduring yet another round of suffering as Ethiopian forces wreck havoc in the capital, Mogadishu. Apparently in response to an attack on one of its units, and the dragging of a soldier’s mutilated body through the city’s streets, an Ethiopian mortar reportedly exploded in Mogadishu’s Bakara market on Nov. 9, killing eight civilians. A number of Somalis were also found dead the following day, some believed to have been rounded up by Ethiopian forces the night before.
Ramzy Baroud went on by saying:
Of course, one cannot realistically expect the international community to take on a constructive involvement in the conflict. Various members of this community have already played a most...
Peter Heinlein of VOA writes:
Washington’s top diplomat on African issues says regional leaders must do more to ease simmering tensions in the Horn of Africa. Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Jendayi Frazer made the comment after leading a team of senior U.S. officials on a tour of Ethiopia’s tense Ogaden region bordering Somalia.
I think the US Government is asking the wrong group of countries to get involved in tragic Somali political conflict. Neither Kenya nor Ethiopia is an honest peace broker. These countries have strategic and security interests that can only be achieved by keeping Somalia weak and fragmented for many years to come. Hence, it is not only illogical but counter-productive to expect those countries to pull Somalia from the current...
The Guardian newspaper reports:
Rising tensions in the Ogaden region of eastern Ethiopia, combined with chronic instability in neighbouring Somalia, Eritrean enmity, and human rights concerns, are testing US support for the Addis Ababa government led by Clinton-era good governance pin-up Meles Zenawi.
The paper continued by saying:
Keeping a firm hand on ethnically Somali, Muslim Ogaden, the scene of a cold war-era proxy conflict, is a long-standing US objective.
The paper continued by saying:
Eritrea, its bitter border dispute with Ethiopia still simmering, is shipping “huge quantities of arms” to insurgents in Somalia, according to a UN report. Concerns about a spreading humanitarian and refugee emergency grow, even as international aid targets undershoot. And now, far from...
In
Cali Maxmed Geedi,
Islamic World,
Pan Somalism,
Terrorism,
Africa,
Arab World,
Western Somalia (Ogaden),
Somalia Islamic Courts,
Ethiopian Invasion,
Col. Cabdullaahi Yuusuf Axmed,
National Security