Ainashe.net

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 Sudan, which has driven 2.5 million from their homes. A bomb attack which killed three foreign aid workers in Somalia on Monday underlined the difficulty in delivering aid in the anarchic country that has been wracked by clan violence for 17 years, he said. Fifteen percent of the population suffer acute malnutrition while health services are very limited and sanitation, water and shelters are extremely poor, Bettocchi said.

Source: UN News Wire

Following is a note from UNDP-USA Somalia section:

Somalia has been without an effective government for over fifteen years and because of this public education has been almost non-existent. As education costs rose fewer and fewer people, especially women, were left without the most basic education. Since women are disproportionately affected by the shortage, they are often left unable to advance into higher education. Just two years ago, a number of Somali women were recruited into the journalism program at Puntland State University. Almost all the women were forced to drop out because they could not afford tuition! Since education and women’s empowerment are some of the necessary backbones to development it is essential that this change.

The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in partnership with the African Virtual University (AVU) are working to make huge strives in the education of Somali women. They realize that only through education can real change happen and can an effective government take hold. $1000 is all it takes to cover a Somali women’s full tuition and her course materials for a one year training program. This small donation can help provide women with a variety of skills ranging from medicine to communication business and help them create a new stable Somalia.

Help give Somali women the opportunities they deserve.

To donate, please click here. For more information on UNDP-USA, please click here.

The African Diaspora Mobilization Team of the World Bank Group says:

We are writing to seek your assistance in launching an initiative aimed at registering Firms owned by members of the African Diaspora on a World Bank database called eConsultant, so that these Firms become eligible for consulting opportunities within ongoing Bank projects in Africa.

This is further to the Diaspora Open House in Washington DC last November, where one of the commitments we made to participants was that we would provide them with opportunities to be considered for consulting roles with the World Bank. We continue to remain excited by this because we believe that the African Diaspora’s unique perspective, combined with specialist skills, will add immense value to our work on the continent.

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This presentation may be of interest to Somali community in Columbus Ohio.

The Ohio State University (OSU) College of Public Health and the OSU Center for African Studies are pleased to sponsoring a presentation on:

“Health and International Humanitarian Assistance: 30 Years of Evolution”
Dr. Ron Waldman, MD, MPH
Columbia University, Mailman School of Public Health
USAID, Team Leader, Pandemic Planning/Humanitarian Response

Date: Wednesday, March 5, 2008
Time: 3:30 - 5:00
Place: Younkin Success Center, Room 150
1640 Neil Avenue (across from the OSU Medical Center)

Anna Husarska of the International Rescue Committee says:
Somalia’s internal conflict is propelled by a combustible mix of religion, politics and clan rivalry. Civilians are killed daily in Mogadishu, there are roadside bombs and mortar attacks, and politicians and journalists are targeted. Making matters worse, the country has suffered this year from both floods and drought. This combination of insecurity and natural disasters has displaced huge numbers of people and caused suffering on a scale painful to behold. According to the most recent UN figures, 400,000 people, or roughly one-third of Mogadishu’s population, have fled the city.

She continued by saying:

Yet Somalia still rarely gets into the headlines. This partly reflects the near impossibility of gathering news. Few foreign journalists venture in — it is too difficult and too dangerous for them to work inside the country — and local reporters are harassed by the authorities. And, even when there is news, the world’s capacity to absorb bad and sad stories from yet another hellish place is limited.

I agree entirely with Ms. Husarska that the world is comply ignoring the tragic events taking place in Somalia. I think it is time the world to wake up and help poor Somali to put their lives together and restore some sort normalcy.

Click here to view the article on Taipei Times through Project Syndicate.

SALIM LONE writes:

In the wake of the awful attacks of September 11 2001, Tony Blair’s passionate denunciation of impoverishment in Africa as “a scar on the conscience of the world” convinced many that the west would propel the issue of mass poverty and injustice to the top of the international agenda in the cause of a more stable world.

This week’s news only confirms that it was a misplaced hope. Not a single country in sub-Saharan Africa has met the criteria set by the UN’s millennium development goals on poverty alleviation, the centrepiece of the project. Some observers believe the number of poor, and the intensity of the poverty, has actually risen in almost all countries.

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Salahuddin Kasem Khan writes:

An Islamic Common Market is a concept which has a firm basis in Islamic History. The establishment of the Islamic State in Medina founded the first Common Market. The dismantling of tribal, cultural and racial barriers by Islam led to a society based on religious brother-hood which transcended geographical boundaries, and as a natural collorary, economic barriers were also simultaneously removed. This new system was to unleash the entrepreneurial and trading energies of the Muslim Arabs, who with the passage of time were determined to establish the greatest economic organisation the world has seen stretching from Morocco to Indonesia.

Click here to view the full report on the Islamic Economic Forum.

In a statement released on Saturday, Louis Michel, EU Commissioner for Development and Humanitarian Aid said:

I call upon all parties to refrain from engaging in a war that cannot be won by anyone. The spoilers and warmongers of all sorts that seek conflict in order to prevail militarily are fooling themselves as well as the Somali people.

Mr. Michel went on by saying:

A new war in Somalia will have tragic consequences not just for the people of Somalia but for the whole region and beyond. We simply cannot afford to see what is going to happen.

Click here to view the full by the Chinese news agency-Xinhua.

Terrence Lyons of the Center for Preventive Action wrote a report titled: “Avoiding Conflict in the Horn of Africa: U.S. Policy toward Ethiopia and Eritrea”.

The entire report (PFD format) can be downloaded free of charge by clicking here.

Ehsan Masood writes on Open democracy:

On 30 November 2006, Pakistan announced what must count as one of the more far-reaching educational reforms for a generation: from September 2007, English will replace Urdu as the language in which science and mathematics will be taught in all state schools. At a stroke, the government has chosen to reverse the policy introduced two decades ago under the military regime of General Zia ul-Haq (1977-88), whereby English is not formally taught in state schools until a child reaches the age of 10.

I think English will bring more cultural pollution and destruction of traditional Pakistani values. Hence, I believe Pakistani pupils will be better off by sticking with their mother tongue; Urdu!

Click here to view the article on the Open Democray.

Simon Tissdall of the Guardian newspaper writes:

Watching Somalia right now is like standing on a beach, waiting for a category five hurricane to hit. The storm is approaching fast, there seems little that can be done, and the ensuing destruction will be terrible - and far-reaching. The looming Somali cataclysm threatens to spark a regional war, suck in east African and Arab actors, and create a dangerous new theatre in the polarising, global contest between western power and Islamist jihadism. Somalia has the potential to make Darfur look like a little local difficulty.

Mr. Tisdall went on by saying:

Three outcomes were possible at this juncture, the western source said. One was that UN-backed, on-off talks between the UIC and Baidoa government resumed, the African protection force deployed, and a “proper political process” got underway. Another, less improbable scenario was that Ethiopia used its military superiority to secure Baidoa and “clobber” some UIC training camps, enabling the government to negotiate from a stronger position. But a third, nightmare outcome was that “the Ethiopians do the full monty, go in in strength, and get stuck”, the source said. That could lead to spreading, al-Qaida-fuelled guerrilla warfare akin to Iraq, Sudanese-style Arab-African conflict, and ultimately, pressure for direct western intervention.

Click here to view the full analysis on the Guardian.

Here is the transcript of the press briefing by some African Finance Ministers at the International Monetary Fund (IMF) yesterday.

You may like to click here to view the entire press briefing through webcast.

Click here to learn more about the IMF.

To date contributors to WFP’s Somalia programme in 2006 are:

United States: US$26.2 million
UK Department for International Development: US$9.64 million
The Netherlands: US$5.3 million
Saudi Arabia: US$3 million
Canada: US$1.3 million
Ireland: US$1.2 million
Italy: US$1.17 million
Sweden: US$1.16 million
United Nations Central Emergency Response Fund: US$851,000
Australia: US$752,000
Belgium: US$643,000
Finland: US$605,000
African Development Bank: US$500,000
Switzerland: US$379,000
Turkey: US$300,000
Norway: US$206,000
US Friends of WFP: US$74,000
Private donations: US$55,000

WFP needs a total of US$37 million to assist 1.1 million people in Somalia until July 2007.

Click here for more on this. You may also click here to learn more about WFP.

Mogadishu is once again a key entry point for getting food stocks into the country. The reopening of the port makes it easier for us to reach more than one million people across the country who rely on our assistance.

Leo van der Velden
Somalia Acting Country Director
UN World Food Program (WFP)

Wangui Kanina of the Reuters news agency writes:

East African leaders pushed ahead on Tuesday with a contested plan to send peacekeepers to Somalia, despite a separate military deal between the country’s rival powers that appeared to block foreign intervention. The regional Inter-Governmental Authority on Development (IGAD), which led talks that produced Somalia’s interim government in 2004, urged the African Union to speed approval of the proposed peacekeeping mission, release funds and help raise more money to support the deployment of troops. IGAD also called on the U.N. Security Council to meet “urgently” to consider lifting its arms embargo on Somalia, torn apart by factions fighting for control of the Horn of Africa nation since warlords ousted Mohamed Siad Barre in 1991. Late on Monday, Islamist and government delegates meeting in the Sudanese capital Khartoum, agreed in principle to join their military forces if they could agree on sharing political power. The pact stressed that neither side would accept military interference inside Somalia by neighboring countries and seemed to set up yet another possible conflict between the government and the Islamists.

The TFG must put screeching halt on this ill-thought and counter-productive plan. Col. Cabdullaahi Yuusuf and Cali Geedi cannot say we want to negotiate peace while at the same time they keeping fueling the conflict by pushing for African troop deployment in Somalia.

Somali peace talks need more honest peace brokers from the Arab and Islamic countries. As the saying goes “ Baadida ninbaa kula daydayi, daalna kaa badin, aan doonahayn inaad heshana daaying abidkaa”. Both Ethiopa and Kenya are working tirelessly for permanent break up of Somalia and further fragmentation of the Somali Nation.

We cannot and we must not allow Somalia’s enemies to sit on the driver’s seat as we did in the past!

Click here to view the full article onn Reuters.

Click here to view the full report (PDF).

The Global Information and Early Warning System (GIEW) paint a grim prospect for Somalia by saying:

Prospects for the 2006 main “gu” cereal crops, for harvest from August, are poor due to insufficient rains; the rainy season is complete, with patchy results. This would lead to the third consecutive season of below average harvest. Despite some heavy rains at the beginning of the season, large areas in Gedo, Bakol, Hiran, Bay, Lower Shabelle, Lower and Middle Juba, Galgadud, Toghdeer, Sool, Sanaag and Bari received below normal rains (see map). The gu is the main rainy season (April–June) with about 70 to 80 percent of annual cereal production in normal years.

Despite favourable rains in several drought-affected regions of Somalia, the food security situation of about 2.1 million drought-affected people thus remains precarious. Extremely high levels of malnutrition persist in many areas including Gedo, Bakool and Juba Valley. Recent nutrition surveys of these areas found unacceptably high rates of acute malnutrition between 16.2 and 23.8 percent (GAM), with corresponding severe malnutrition rates of 3.7 to 4.2 percent (SAM).

This is one of the tragedies of the Somali political conflict, while the so called “leaders” (Myopic triblists) are bickering among themselves, thousands of Somalis die everyday due to hunger and starvation!

Click here to view the article GIEW website.

The South African Pretoria News reports:

Mogadishu - Ethiopian troops in armoured vehicles have rolled into Somalia and set up a camp near the home of the interim president. Residents said the troops arrived yesterday, less than a day after Islamic militants reached the outskirts of the base of a UN-backed, but largely powerless government. A spokesperson for the Ethiopian government had said that his country would protect Somalia’s transitional government from attack by the Somali Islamic militias who control much of southern Somalia. Numerous witnesses said that Ethiopian soldiers arrived yesterday afternoon in Baidoa, the only town held by the government, 240km north-west of Mogadishu and about 150km east of the Ethiopian border. The Ethiopians drove into a fenced compound near the transitional president’s home and Somali militiamen prevented residents from approaching the area, residents said.

Somalis of all walks of life MUST defend their country against the Ethiopian invasion. President Cabdullahi Yusuf never wanted to be more than an Ethiopian Viceroy in Somalia.

Click here to view the full report on Pretoria News.

The Pan-Arab Al Jazeera Television Network reports:

Abdi Hassan Awale Qeydiid, Somalia’s last secular warlord in the capital Mogadishu, has surrendered to Islamic militants after a two-day battle that left at least 67 dead, militants said. The militants said on Monday that they had captured the warlord’s headquarters in the south of the city and that his fighters had begun handing over their weapons. The militants had claimed on Sunday that they had taken full control of the city after declaring victory over Qeydiid and fellow warlord and transitional government member Hussein Aidid, but heavy fighting had resumed early afternoon on Monday. After four months of fighting between militants and the US-backed warlords, which left over 400 dead, Mogadishu fell on June 5 to the militants, who also control swathes of southern Somalia. Somalia’s transitional government in Baidoa, about 250kms (150miles) from Mogadishu, demanded that the Islamists abandon territories they seized in Mogadishu and be excluded from peace talks with the government, expected to resume in Khartoum on Saturday.

Abdi Qaydiid was mad murderer who slaughtered countless number of innocent Somalis. Indeed, he was recently arrested in Sweden for war crimes. Everyone in Mogadishu and elsewhere in the country is relieved for his departure. However, he should not go unpunished for the war crimes he committed against the Somali people. Justice must be done!

Click here to view the report on Al Jazeera.

Justin Raimondo of the Anti-War.com has an interested piece on “How we (Americans) messed up Somalia – and paved the way for Islamist domination.” The article has lots of links to references for further reading.

It is a good read..

Click here to view the full article on the Anti-War.Com.

IRIN News Reports:

Ethiopia’s national avian flu coordination committee has approved a multi-million dollar contingency plan to strengthen preparedness in the event of the disease spreading to the Horn of Africa country. The three-year plan, costing almost US $124 million, was prepared by the Avian Human Influenza National Coordination Committee.

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Andrew Cawthorne of the Reuters News agency writes:

Somali gunman Nur Faryama has wielded an AK-47 for two decades — since he was eight in fact.Like thousands of others in the anarchic Horn of Africa nation, Faryama has spent his whole youth charging in and out of battles and riding on the back of “technicals” — pickups made into war machines — with bullet belts draped round him. Finally, however, thanks to the rise to power of the Islamic Courts for whom he fought in recent months, the 27-year-old hopes he may be able to put down his gun and go to school. “For 16 years, when the warlords ruled, there was no economy, no education, no nothing,” he said. “Now we have stability, we can start our lives. I would like to go to school. I don’t want to be a gunman for ever.”

Click here to view the article on the Scotsman newspaper.

Martin Plaut of the BBC News says:

Independent sources are now also saying that about 500 Ethiopian troops are indeed inside Somalia - just east of Baidoa.

Click here to view the full dispatch on the BBC News.

Jan Egeland, the U.N. emergency relief coordinator, said in a statement:

At a time when people most need medical care and surgical attention, the occupation of Keysaney hospital by armed fighters constitutes a gross violation of international humanitarian law.

Mr. Egeland went on by saying:

The recent indiscriminate shelling in Mogadishu and spreading fighting in the environs of the capital have resulted in enormous human suffering.

Mr. Egeland concluded by saying:

This is a potential disaster area, at least from the humanitarian perspective, if it is not contained in the near future.

Following are few extracts from the transcript of the Daily Press Briefing at the United States Department of State in Washington, DC.

Tom Casey, Acting Spokesman
Washington, DC
June 2, 2006

QUESTION: Are you concerned at the growing importance of China and Africa and would you be looking at other trading blocs and their interest within China?

MS. THOMAS-GREENFIELD: I think —

QUESTION: Within Africa, sorry.

MS. THOMAS-GREENFIELD: Yeah. I think concern is not the word. I think we’re watching it very closely. But there is lots of room for every country to do trade and development in Africa.

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Following is the entire text of a Press Release by the Swedish Ministry of Foreign Affairs:

Press release
01 June 2006
Ministry for Foreign Affairs

Press invitation: Annika Söder to meet Somalia’s Minister of Planning and International Cooperation. State Secretary Annika Söder and Abdirizak Osman Hassan, Minister of Planning and International Cooperation in Somalia’s transitional government, will hold a press conference at the Ministry for Foreign Affairs on Friday 2 June at 12.30.

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Following is the text of today’s (May 31.06) Press Statement delivered by Acting Security Council President Pascal Gayama ( Congo):

The members of the Security Council received a briefing on 30 May 2006 from the Department of Political Affairs, related to the recent developments in Somalia. They strongly condemned the resumption of fighting in Mogadishu. The members of the Security Council expressed their deep concern over the loss of life, suffering and the renewed violence against the civilian populations.

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The CNN International reports:

Members of militias fighting for control of the Somali capital could face war crimes charges for attempting to prevent the wounded and civilians from receiving assistance during the conflict, a U.N. official warned Monday.

Eric Laroche, the U.N. Humanitarian Coordinator for Somalia was quoted as saying:

Increasingly worrying reports from Mogadishu describe indiscriminate shelling of civilian populations and the city’s medical facilities, with dozens dead in the last few days. (…) Due to the intensity of the recent fighting, an increased number of civilian casualties have been unable to reach medical facilities.

Mr. Laroche went on by saying that:

(…) Any deliberate attempt to prevent wounded or civilians receiving assistance and protection during fighting in the city may constitute elements of future war crimes.

This warning seems to be directed to Muuse Suudi Yalaxow who is currently using a Hospital in Mogadishu as a hidding ground and keeping its entire staff as hostages.  Mr. Laroche’s warning is certainly a step in the right direction. However, what Mr. Laroche failed to mention is the fact that the main reason why the warlords are keeping a whole nation as a hostage is a direct result of United Nations’ confused and incoherent policy towards the Somali conflict. The problem of warlordism would have ended long time ago if the UN allowed the Somali Transitional Federal Government to carry out its main political objective which is to secure the country and bring law and order by lifting the Arms Embargo. The UN has as much Somali blood on their hands as the Mogadishu warlords if not more! It is time for the UN to do the right thing and act sensibly. The continuation of the arms embargo serves no purpose other than empowering the warlords to murder more innocent Somalis. The UN’s failure in Rwanda should not be forgotten!

Click here to view the full dispatch on CNN International.

Somalia’s lost generation is a demographic time bomb that nobody wants to talk about!