Thursday 4, April ,2024 {HMC} Mumbai: A special court here on Tuesday directed the Juvenile Justice Board (JJB) to initiate an inquiry to ascertain the age of seven out of the 35 pirates, who were apprehended last month in an operation off the coast of Somalia, as they claim to be minors.

All 35 pirates were produced before special judge B D Shelke at the end of their initial police remand on Tuesday.

During the hearing, seven accused, through their lawyers, submitted documents such as birth certificate, school leaving certificate, etc to claim that they are minors.

However, special public prosecutor Iqbal Solkar, appearing for the police, raised an objection about the veracity of the documents, and said it should be verified.

The ossification tests done at a state-run hospital revealed that these seven accused are above 20 years of age, he added.

Taking note of the contradictory views, the court asked the JJB to launch an inquiry to ascertain their age.

The seven accused, for now, have been sent to a children’s home at Dongri in South Mumbai.

Among the other remaining accused, one has been remanded in police custody till April 8, while the rest have been sent to a 14-day judicial custody.

In an operation lasting over 40 hours that commenced in the early hours of March 15, INS Kolkata intercepted Pirate Ship ex-MV Ruen in the Arabian Sea based on inputs received by Indian Navy’s Information Fusion Centre – Indian Ocean Region from UKMTO (United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations).

INS Kolkata, with the 35 apprehended pirates, returned to Mumbai on March 23.

The pirates were handed over to the police for further legal action in accordance with Indian laws.

The exercise was undertaken as part of the ongoing Operation Sankalp, wherein Indian Navy ships are deployed in the Arabian Sea and the Gulf of Aden for the safety of seafarers and mercantile trade passing through the region.

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Thursday 4, April ,2024 {HMC} Kenya will not reopen its border posts with Somalia anytime soon because of the security implications of doing so at a time when the African Union peacekeeping mission in the neighbouring country is winding down.

Interior Principal Secretary Raymond Omollo told Nation.Africa in an interview that the move was informed by the need to secure the country at all entry and exit points.

Dr Omollo’s revelation comes nine months after his boss Interior Cabinet Secretary Kithure Kindiki, and his Somali counterpart Mohamed Ahmed Sheikh Ali announced their intention to reopen the borders following high-level consultations in Nairobi, which would have ended a 12-year barricade that began in 2011.

With Kenya sharing some 800 kilometres of border with Somalia, a distance almost equivalent to the journey from Mombasa to Busia, Omollo admitted that the route had proved very difficult to secure.

But with Somalia being the newest member of the East African Community (EAC), Dr Omollo said the troubled country was entitled to benefit from the seamless trade and movement enjoyed by other member states of the community.

“Somalia is unique because it has faced a lot of challenges especially terrorism. But when you look at the long border, it makes it very daunting. We had plans and we still have plans to open several border points with Somalia, we thought not now but we will do so even as we consider the challenge of insecurity that this move brings,” said Dr Omollo.

He also explained that Kenya expects more security challenges with the planned withdrawal of the African Union Transitional Mission in Somalia (Atmis) troops in Somalia.

“We are eagerly waiting to see how the drawdown will go and maybe after a few months to almost a year we will be able to make these border points (between Kenya and Somalia) fully functional,” he said.

In addition, the sheer terrain of the stretch shared by the two countries is very rough and will require very heavy investment to seal the loopholes in controlling movement in and out of Kenya.

“This area is largely arid, so yes, some may say we have a porous border, but it has to be seen in the context of the distance and the geographical features along the border points,” he said.

Although the land border posts have yet to open, there is still movement between Kenya and Somalia, particularly by air, with daily flights on the Nairobi-Mogadishu route.

This alone means a large number of business transactions between the two countries, which Dr Omollo says necessitates the reopening of the closed border points.

“We need to open the border points, which will go a long way in increasing the volume of trade. It will also help us deal with illicit trade as the reopening will help us address the issues that are pushing many to the porous points at the borders,” he said.

Dr Omollo also gave an insight into the National Border Management Conference at the Bomas of Kenya in Nairobi, which begins on Tuesday and will bring together stakeholders in border management to discuss strategies to improve efficiency in the sector.

At the summit, stakeholders will take stock of operations at border posts over the past decade since the establishment of the Border Control Coordination Operations Committee, currently chaired by Dr Omollo.

“We are meeting to review what is happening globally in terms of border control and also to emphasise the inter-agency approach and coordination in border management. We will also discuss the challenges we face in this area,” he said.

Currently, Kenya shares borders with five countries including Somalia, Ethiopia, South Sudan, Uganda and Tanzania, necessitating efficient operations at border points in terms of movement of people and goods to facilitate trade.

“As we speak today, one of the agencies, the Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA), will soon be deploying drones to support its operations at some of the land border points where they are the lead agency in terms of border operations at the land points,” PS Omollo said.

He also said Kenya was changing tactics and would use technology where it could not deploy border guards.

“In the case of the Kenya Ports Authority (KPA) or airports, we have body scanners and cameras and that speaks to the fact that it is impossible to have boots in every room. It is also not cost-effective, and we have to use technology to do that, whether it is drones, cameras or police equipment in terms of security,” he said.

In 2023, fake documents and identification accounted for 40 percent of all crimes recorded at Kenya’s border points, and the government hopes to curb this menace through the country’s new visa-free regime, which has significantly reduced such incidents.

“We have invested in making it difficult for people to obtain travel documents. The introduction of the visa-free regime has also helped to reduce this challenge. Even before someone comes to Kenya, we have information in advance, we can do pre-screening and share the data with agencies like Interpol,” he said.

Aside from the issue of document forgery at border points, there is also the challenge of illegal movement and trafficking, which deprives the country of much-needed revenue to run its programmes.

“For the past month or so, we have been discussing the issue of illicit alcohol and part of it is that we have ethanol crossing the border that is cheaper than what is available in Kenya. In the illicit trade, people are evading taxes and depriving the government of revenue,” said Omollo.

Also key to the government’s plans to improve border management is the involvement of communities through the Peace Committees, which are made up of national government administrators and village elders.

“This acts as a forum for the government to talk to the community and identify the challenges, the issues and their concerns, and this helps to address not only the security challenges associated with movement across the border and also the illicit trade,” Dr Omollo said.

The state is also engaging a number of partners, including IOM, and holding bilateral discussions with other development partners, including the UK and US governments, to support the implementation of community engagement programmes in the border counties.

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Wednesday 4, April ,2024 {HMC}  in response to an inquiry from New America, AFRICOM provided its assessment of the death toll of a December 20, 2023 U.S. strike in the vicinity of Yaq Dabel, Somalia, saying the strike killed two “al-Shabaab terrorists.” The response filled in the last instance in which the United States had confirmed that it conducted a strike in Somalia in 2023 but had not provided an assessed death toll (either via a press release or in response to New America’s inquiries).

With the assessed death toll of the December 20 strike in Yaq Dabel now known, we have a complete record of the number of strikes the United States acknowledges conducting in Somalia in 2023 and their assessed death tolls. We can therefore calculate the total U.S. assessed death toll of those strikes.

The U.S. assessed that it killed a total of 120 people over the course of 18 air strikes and one ground operation in Somalia in 2023. The current U.S. assessment is that it killed no civilians in 2023.

The average U.S. strike (or operation) in 2023 killed just over six people. The deadliest strike occurred at the beginning of the year on January 20, 2023, when a U.S. strike occurred “near Galcad, Somalia where Somalia National Army forces were engaged in heavy fighting following a complex, extended, intense attack by more than 100 al-Shabaab fighters” and in response to the complex al-Shabaab attack. However, it is possible that the high death toll includes al-Shabaab fighters killed in the fighting but not by the strike. The press release states, “combined actions by partner forces on the ground and the collective self-defense strike is estimated to have resulted in three destroyed vehicles and approximately thirty al-Shabaab terrorists killed.”

The lowest death toll of a U.S. strike or operation in 2023 was zero. The U.S. assessed that it killed nobody in two strikes in 2023. The first time in a May 20, 2023 strike in Jilib, which appeared to be an attempt to target an al-Shabaab leader, identified by reporting as Osman Mohamed Abdi, a veteran al-Shabaab commander involved in attacks in Kenya. The strike appears to have only injured the targeted leader. LCDR Timothy S. Pietrack, an AFRICOM spokesman, told New America in a May 23 email that AFRICOM “assesses that one al-Shabaab leader was injured as a result of the operation.”

The second strike in which the U.S. assessed it killed nobody occurred on May 26 “in the vicinity of the ATMIS forward operating base, FOB Bulo Marer.” This strike followed a complex attack on the base, and appears to have been focused on destroying heavy weapons and equipment that al-Shabaab fighters were carting away from the attack.

Note: Counting strikes is difficult due to unclear and at times changing definitions of what constitutes a strike. For the purpose of this analysis, I have relied upon AFRICOM’s self reporting of the number of strikes in its press releases. AFRICOM confirmed to me on January 18, that it conducted 18 strikes in 2023 in Somalia. For ease of reference, I refer to the counterterrorism operation on January 25 that killed Bilal al-Sudani as a strike. The government has acknowledged conducting that operation, but does not define it as a strike. It is worth noting that on January 25, AFRICOM released a statement declaring one strike consisting of two “engagements.” For this analysis, I have followed AFRICOM in treating the two engagements as one strike. Death tolls are derived from a combination of the press releases and AFRICOM’s responses to New America’s inquiries and only reflect AFRICOM’s stated assessments.

Wednesday 4, April ,2024

Ethiopia’s State Minister for Foreign Affairs, Ambassador Mesganu Arga, met with a delegation from Puntland on Wednesday led by its Finance Minister, Mohammed Farah Mohammed. The meeting occurred amid ongoing constitutional dispute between Puntland and the Somali federal government.

Puntland intends to function independently from Somalia pending a public referendum on recent constitutional amendments. These amendments, ratified last Saturday, facilitate direct presidential elections and empower the president to appoint a prime minister without parliamentary consent.

The meeting also puts a spotlight on Ethiopia once again, whose recent actions have sparked controversy, especially after signing a contentious Memorandum of Understanding with Somaliland, which asserts its independence and which Somalia considers a violation of its sovereignty and a threat to national unity. There are indications that Ethiopia might abandon its recognition plans for Somaliland, following global pressures aimed at mitigating regional discord, as per a Bloomberg report.

During their discussions, the Ethiopian and Puntland officials examined prospects for cooperation in trade, investment, energy, and infrastructure development.

Ambassador Mesganu congratulated Puntland on its recent electoral success and reaffirmed Ethiopia’s dedication to its partnership with Puntland.

Thursday 4, April ,2024 {HMC} Destitute families and those living in internal displacement camps in Baidoa have been struggling to find meals following steep rise in food prices since January. Earlier flooding of the river Shabelle cut off roads that normally are the supply routes to Baidoa from Mogadishu.

The prices of basic food items including flour, rice, sugar, pasta and cooking have doubled since the floods hit.

Mohamed Barakow Abdi, 45, a father of four children, said his family struggles to get just one meal a day. He is a porter making about two dollars a day – roughly the price of two kilograms of rice or flour.

“A kilo of rice is $1.5 and I earn just $2!” he said. “The rising food prices he really hurt us. We used to manage breakfast and lunch but now we eat once and it’s not enough for us and the children. We are in the month of Ramadan and we don’t have food in store.”

At the beginning of Ramadan, he took $50 worth of food on credit from a local store, although it didn’t last long.

“I can’t afford anything. Every day businessmen remind me to pay my debts and I don’t have the money to pay them. I sometimes get work and sometimes I don’t, whenever I don’t get a job I have to borrow money.”

Mohamed said locally grown food including maize, beans and sorghum had also risen in price due to cycles of drought and floods.

“There is nothing being harvested from the farms now, a kilo of beans is $1 and it was $0.4 a month ago, sorghum is $0.5 and was previously $0.2. It’s the same with the maize. Everything has risen sky high,” he complained.

Mohamed himself used to be a farmer in Bakal village, 25 kilometres from Baidoa, where his three-hectare farm failed in 2022 following prolonged drought and lack of rainfall. He constructed a two-room shack where they are living now in Baidoa, although they haven’t moved in to a camp.

His children are all out of school as he can’t afford to pay their fees.

Meanwhile, Mohamed Adan Hilowle, 33, lives with his two wives and five children in Weel Muge IDP camp in Baidoa. It’s on privately owned land so they always worry about being evicted.

Without a job or any source of income, his family depends on their neighbours for food although everyone in the camp has similar struggles.

“We don’t have food, we depend on a quarter kilo that we might get from someone, and half from someone else. That’s how we survive, we don’t get breakfast or lunch we only get dinner. If there are people in a desperate situation it is us!” he said.

He was laid off from the $4 a day work he had in a quarry that closed down in December.

“A person can only work hard, only God can change or alleviate our suffering. We hope that the aid organisations can help us,” he appealed.

Residents in the IDP camp have to pay 20,000 Somali shillings ($0.8) for 20 litres of water. Mohamed has to beg for money to get his family water.

In better days, Mohamed was also a farmer in Dinsor, where their four-hectare farm failed due to water shortage. They abandoned the land in March 2022 to join the IDP camp, hoping to get aid and opportunities.

Baidoa residents depend on food imported by road from Mogadishu, 245 kilometres away.

Ibrahim Osman Adan, a businessman in Baidoa, told Radio Ergo that the trucks used to take a day to cover the distance that now takes two and a half days. Drivers have to take longer alternative routes due to flood damage. The extra costs of transportation have been passed on to the consumers.

“People used to buy what they needed but now they can’t afford it, which causes a problem for us as well. I used to make a good income, but nowadays people can’t afford our goods,” he said.

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