Ainashe.net

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 assistance for IDPs, host communities, the most marginalised groups and the chronically vulnerable, focusing on central and southern Somalia. The main needs identified are shelter and non-food relief items, health and nutrition, emergency food assistance, water and sanitation, as well as co-ordination of relief efforts. The Commission has also provided food aid worth €14 million so far this year. Humanitarian aid worth more than €56 million has been provided for Somaliasince 2006.

Click here to view the full Press Release by the European Commission.

Speaking at the World Islamic Economic Forum on Monday, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, the Indonesian president was quoted as saying:

We appear weak because we have been told we are weak and believed it.

In an equally encouraging remark, Abdullah Badawi, Malaysia’s prime minister said:

The loss of knowledge and innovation within the Muslim ummah [people] eventually led to the loss of sovereignty and empire.

Abdullah Badawi went on by saying:

We must rediscover our ability and passion for knowledge and innovation … we must reclaim this legacy.

Click here to view the full article on the Pan Arab Al Jazeera TV network.

Louis Michel; EU Commissioner for Development and Humanitarian Development was quoted as saying: 

I am proposing to you a regional pact for stability, security and development in the Horn. This pact would revitalize and complement agreed common programs to address the regional cross-border dynamics and ensure that such programs are fully effective. (…) This strategy should focus, in particular, on regional governance, natural resources management, food security, border control and nonproliferation of small arms,” he told eastern Africa leaders in Nairobi. (…)The history of the EU can be a source of inspiration for the region. The EU has thrived and flourished because it has overcome long-standing rivalries and hatred.

Louis Michel went on by saying:

Nowadays, your regional political forum, IGAD, has become a central part of the political and security architecture of the Horn of Africa. It needs to be utilized to its full potential. Butthis requires genuine political will and commitment.

 Well, I will need to study the full strategy text before I can make an educated judgment. However, my gut-feeling tells me that this “strategy” is nothing more than Europe’s covert way of trying to curb immigration from the Horn of African countries. I don’t think this is something that will have positive impact in terms of security and economic development for the countries concerned. It is an old anti-immigration strategies sugar coated with a gentler political rhetoric. It will not work!

Click here to view the dispatch on the Xinhuanet.

The Sydney Morning Herald featured story about a Somali teen-ager and says: 

In many respects, Mohamed is a typical teenager. He likes to drive the family car, regards the prospect of working in an office with dismay and his dad wants him to study harder. In many ways he also is a normal young cricketer. He wants to bat higher, reckons he ought to bowl more and thinks his captain is a dunderhead. He is different in only two regards. He is from Somalia. And he has one leg. 

The determination to success and perseverance of this young Somali man is admirable! 

Click here to view the full article on the SMH. 

The Danish Institute for International Studies published recently a paper titled “Opportunities and Pitfalls in the Migration-Development Nexus: Somaliland and Beyond.”

The paper outlines current discussions around the links between migration, development and conflict. It also considers the complex nature of ‘mixed flows’, the difficulties in distinguishing between forced/political and voluntary/economic migration, and the links to development from these various – and often overlapping – types of flows. The paper uses migration from Somalia/Somaliland as the main example. This case – like the cases of most other sending countries - is of course specific. Still lessons can be drawn that are useful in other contexts, and may provide a basis for constructive discussion of potential opportunities in the current migration and international cooperation regimes.

The paper is bit old (2004) but it will certainty be useful to those who want to get greater understanding of the “push” and “pull” factors of Somali migration to Denmark.

Click here to view or download the paper in its entirety.

According to Norway Statistics (Statistisk sentralbyrå-SSB), Somalis are the fifth largest foreign minority in Norway and largest none-western group totaling about ten thousand . As the saying goes, “allahayow dhib baddanaa nin ka tagay dhulkiisii”.

Majority of Somalis in Norway are under-age children.

Click here to view the full report on SSB. You may like to click here to find similar statistics for Somalis in Sweden. And here for Denmark.

Following are the top ten countries with the highest percentage of college graduates living abroad, including Somalia.

Haiti 84% (the poorest country in the western hamisphere!)
Ghana 47
Mozambique 45%
Kenya 38%
Uganda 36
Angola 33%
Somalia 33%
El Salvador 31%
Sri Lanka 31%

How could development and economic progress take place in countries with such dismal numbers?

Following is the summary of the World Bank Report on “International migration, remittances, and the brain drain”: (more…)

The government of Norway in association with Norwegian Refugees Council is helping Somali refugees returning back to Somalia by offering financial incentives.

Click here for a full report (Kun på norsk!)

As the saying goes: “Allahayow dhib badanaa nin ka tagay dhulkiisii”

Somali immigrants to Australia include a relatively high proportion of women with their children, whose husbands and other male relatives have often died or are missing. These families may be separated from family support and structures that they would normally rely on in Somalia. They have also experienced relatively high levels of trauma, deprivation and distress, and may be suffering after-effects of such experiences. There are relatively few older males, who traditionally play a significant role in the development of male adolescents and young men. This means that community structures to support cultural maintenance or the negotiation of new values have to be created in Australia at the same time as settlement is occurring.

Read the introduction of this paper and see how our history is twisted wrongly. The paper argues that Somalis originated from Ethiopia!
Click here to view the full paper.

The London Daily Mail newspaper says:

Two of the real suicide bombers turn out to be the dependants of asylum seekers who were given safe haven in this country in the early 1990s. One of them, Yasin Hassan Omar, 24, arrived at the age of 11 from Somalia, was granted indefinite leave to remain five years ago, and has pocketed approximately £38,000 in welfare benefits (oh yes, and he has a council flat). The other, Muktar Saed Ibrahim, 27, arrived from Eritrea when he was 14, becoming a British citizen and receiving a passport last year (even though he’s served time in prison for violence) and, oh yes, he has also been living on state handouts.

Welcomed here as the dependants of asylum seekers, educated in our schools, taking full advantage of all the benefits this country so generously offers - now they want to destroy us. Could there be a more chilling snapshot of the madness of a system implemented by successive governments that has left this country at the mercy of murderous fanatics?

The Daily Mail newspaper sells widely in Britain mainly due to its cynical and hostile anti-immigration campaign but isn’t fair to say that they have a point now to condemn those who want to destroy the country that treated them so well? I am sure many British people feel that the guest they welcomed into their home is setting fire onto their very house.