Wednesday January 24, 2024

A United Nations helicopter in mid-January was conducting a medical evacuation when a technical problem forced it to make an emergency landing in an area long controlled by al-Shabaab in central Somalia.

The terror group abducted six people and shot another person dead as they tried to flee.

The incident underlined the struggles Somalia has faced since it asked the U.N. in September to delay the planned drawdown of 3,000 African Union Transition Mission in Somalia (ATMIS) Soldiers. The attack and others show that al-Shabaab still poses a threat and highlights challenges faced by the Somali National Army in providing security for the country.

ATMIS, which includes troops from Burundi, Djibouti, Ethiopia, Kenya and Uganda, completed the first phase of the drawdown of 2,000 troops on June 30, 2023, and was due to withdraw more September 30, reducing its military personnel to 14,626.

It was the second pause in the drawdown since December 2022, when the Somali government sought a review of ATMIS operational timelines. Analysts says ATMIS also has been hampered by a lack of funding.

“It remains vital that the drawdown of ATMIS troops be informed and guided by a careful assessment of the prevailing security situation and the Somalia security forces capability,” ATMIS head Mohamed El-Amine Souef told the U.N. Security Council.

Researchers at the Institute for Security Studies (ISS) argued that Somalia’s request for another pause in the drawdown reveals a lack of confidence that its Army can adequately stabilize the country by December 2024, when ATMIS is scheduled to hand over full security responsibilities to Somali forces.

Ongoing al-Shabaab offensives against the Somali Army and police, coupled with forces’ retreat from areas previously captured, highlighted weaknesses in the military’s capabilities.

“Insufficient funding and al-Shabaab’s relative strength has left ATMIS forces strategically overstretched and hindered by limited equipment, such as helicopters, for decisive operations,” the ISS researchers wrote.

There is also insufficient firepower and training support for Somali forces to handle all security efforts by December 2024, according to the ISS, which said that ATMIS should completely draw down only when the Somali military generates enough force with the capacity to eliminate al-Shabaab.

“Short of this, the drawdown according to set timelines will reverse gains of recent years with detrimental implications for Somalia and the broader Horn of Africa,” the ISS researchers wrote. “It will also cast continued doubt over the AU’s role in managing peace and security in Africa.”

Despite these challenges, Somalia’s military offensive has regained more than 600 kilometers of ground against al-Shabaab since August 2022, according to Souef, who also chairs the A.U. Commission for Somalia.

In August 2023, Somali security forces killed more than 160 al-Shabaab members during a four-day operation.

“This is the first time that the Somali people have been able to defeat al-Shabab and the confidence is very high,” Federal Parliament member Malik Abdalla told news agency, The Media Line. “Now people have started talking about the post-al-Shabab [era].”

In December, Somalia’s National Intelligence and Security Agency also scored a victory over the militants when it seized two illegal shipments of military hardware and explosive material bound for al-Shabaab.

The intelligence agency said an investigation relating to the shipments led to the arrest of 10 people linked to a smuggling network.

“Our agency has been following the activities of these individuals in Somalia and outside Somalia,” then-State Minister of Defense Mohamed Ali Haga said in a Voice of America report. “It has been following their involvement in this smuggling network. Fortunately, all of them are in custody, and none has escaped.”

Wednesday January 24, 2024
By Omar Faruk

MOGADISHU, Somalia (AP) — A stadium in Somalia’s violence-prone capital is hosting its first soccer tournament in three decades, drawing thousands of people to a sports facility that had been abandoned for decades and later became a military base amid the country’s civil war.

Somali authorities have spent years working to restore the national stadium in Mogadishu, and on Dec. 29 Prime Minister Hamza Abdi Barre inaugurated a national soccer tournament. The competition is a milestone in efforts to restore public life after decades of violence.

Somalia’s fragile central government is still struggling to assert itself after the nationwide chaos that began with the fall of dictator Siad Barre in 1991, when public facilities like the Mogadishu stadium fell into neglect.

The air crackles with anticipation as thousands pour into the stadium each afternoon. Crowds roar with the thrill of competition.

The Islamist extremist group Al-Shabab, which has ties with the Islamic State, still sometimes launches attacks on hotels, government offices and other public places, but it many Somalis are willing to brave the stadium, which has a heavy security presence.

“My praise be to God,” said Jubbaland player Mohamud Abdirahim, whose team beat Hirshabelle in a nail-biting encounter on Tuesday that went to a penalty shootout. “This tournament, in which all of Somalia’s regions participate, is exceptionally special. It will become a part of our history.”

Hirshabelle fan Khadro Ali said she “felt as though we were emancipated.”

The Somali states of Jubbaland, South West, Galmudug, and Hirshabelle and the Banadir administrative region are participating in the competition. The state of Puntland is not participating, amid a political dispute with the central government, and Somaliland has long asserted administrative independence.

The stadium was badly damaged during the civil war, and combatants later turned into a military base.

The stadium was a base for Ethiopian troops between 2007 and 2009, and was then occupied by al-Shabab militants from 2009 to 2011. Most recently, between 2012 and 2018, the stadium was a base for African Union peacekeepers.

“When this stadium was used as a military camp, it was a source of agony and pain. However, you can now see how it has transformed and is destined to serve its original purpose, which is to play football,” said Ali Abdi Mohamed, president of the Somali Football Federation.

His sentiments were echoed by the Somali sports minister, Mohamed Barre, who said the onetime army base “has transformed into a place where people of similar interests can come together … and we want the world to see this.”

Wednesday January 24, 2024

An outbreak of Diphtheria in Garowe has led to the deaths of 130 children in the last three months, according to Somali doctors working in private and public hospitals in this district of Puntland. Many more patients have been hospitalised with the disease and numbers are said to be rising.

Four local hospitals have been admitting children who are sick. They are the private Gotale hospital, Qaran hospital, Arafat hospital, and the public Garowe general hospital.

The director of Gotale hospital, Dr Ahmed Gutale, told Radio Ergo’s local correspondent in an interview that most of the children dying from Diphtheria in this outbreak were unvaccinated children from the rural areas outside the town.

Dr Gutale also appealed to the Puntland health authorities to ensure that private hospitals were supplied with the necessary antitoxins to treat cases of Diphtheria, as currently they do not have access to the drugs required to save lives.

Radio Ergo’s correspondent, Abdiweli Mohamed Sheikh, asked Dr Gutale to describe what he has been seeing at his hospital.

Dr Gutale: The children appear to be affected as if they had flu, with nasal congestion and runny nose, and they also quickly start showing different signs like swollen glands in the neck and difficulty breathing.

In Gotale hospital we have attended to many children who are sick with this disease and there are some who recover. The children who usually recover swiftly from this disease are those who have been vaccinated. However, the children dying of this disease acquire comorbidities where for example, their kidneys or hearts are affected.

This disease is potent. In recent months there has been a rise in the number of children dying. Since we started recording in December until now [date of interview 11th January 2024] I know of six deaths. In other hospitals including the mother and child health centres there are also reports of deaths, and similarly in the main hospital, so I can say the number of deaths overall has been rising in recent months.

Radio Ergo: Where do the children come from mostly, within the city or outside?

Dr Gutale: In our hospital the children we have admitted are mostly from the villages or have visited the villages. We have seen some leaving the cities to get milk from the villages during the rainy season. I can say the number of children coming from the villages or the rural outskirts is higher, and they usually don’t get vaccinated.

Radio Ergo: What has been the pattern over the last three months?

Dr Gutale: When the children arrive here, you can tell the disease by the symptoms. Coughing may be evident, but parents might take that lightly, although the disease will get worse in 24 hours. They start to struggle breathing, their necks swell, they lose their appetite. So, when the children arrive here, they are usually in a critical condition.

Some parents are aware and bring their children to hospital fast, so these children start getting medication before their condition worsens. Others come late and they may start to have organ failures such as kidney failure or develop heart problems, or they might start to become paralysed as nerve signals to the muscles are damaged. These children mostly arrive from remote areas in a critical condition.

Radio Ergo: Within the last three months how many children with this disease have been admitted to Gotale hospital?

Dr Gutale: In a day in Gotale hospital, one to three children arrive here. But on average it’s one patient in a day.

Radio Ergo: Do you have medicines?

Dr Gutale: There are medicines but Diphtheria is one of the deadly diseases that kills, it affects the respiratory system, people start to lose their appetite. It also affects all the main organs in the body, so it is therefore important for people to seek preventive measures [i.e. vaccination] rather than rely on medication.

There are two types of medicines used, one is antitoxins to stop damage by Diphtheria to your organs, and the other is regular antibiotics that are used to counter bacterial diseases. We have antibiotics that we give the children, but we don’t have the antitoxins which are very important. We currently don’t have them, and we refer the children to public hospitals.

However, I hope that when our voices reach the authorities as we have requested, they will also supply the private hospitals with these medicines as many patients are arriving here. The medicines need to be available, but as far as I know there are no antitoxins in private hospitals.

Radio Ergo: What are the long terms effects to the children if they recover?

Dr Gutale: Vaccinated children easily recover when they get the right medicine. For the other children there are some who are lucky and do get better. Some get organ failures or start showing acute symptoms that can affect the heart leading to heart failure, the same with the kidneys and the muscles which start to lose mobility.

ByOMAR FARUK Associated Press
Wednesday January 24, 2024

MOGADISHU, Somalia — The U.S. military said Tuesday that it conducted airstrikes in Somalia over the weekend that killed three al-Qaida-linked al-Shabab militants and that there were no civilian casualties.

The U.S. Africa Command, based in Stuttgart Germany, said in a statement that the strikes were done at the request of Somalia’s government, and they were carried out in a remote area about 35 kilometers (20 miles) northeast of port city Kismayo on Sunday. The statement didn’t give the identity of those targeted.

There was no immediate response from al-Shabab.

Al-Shabab is the largest and most active al-Qaida network in the world and has proved both its will and capability to attack U.S. forces and threaten Washington’s security interests, the statement said.

The militants have been waging a 16-year-old insurgency against the weak, Western-backed Somali government, which is being bolstered by African Union peacekeeping troops.

The militants have carried out large-scale extremist attacks in neighboring Kenya. Kenyan troops are part of the AU’s peacekeeping forces in Somalia, and al-Shabab has vowed to take revenge against the Kenyan troop presence with attacks.

In 2020, al-Shabab extremists overran a key military base used by U.S. counterterror forces on the Kenyan coast, killing three American soldiers and destroying several U.S. aircraft and vehicles before they were repelled.

The 19,000-strong multinational AU peacekeeping force has begun a phased withdrawal from the country with the aim of handing over security responsibilities in the coming months to Somali forces, which have been described by some experts as not ready for the challenge.

Last month, Somalia’s government welcomed the U.N. Security Council’s vote to lift the arms embargo imposed on the country more than three decades ago, saying it would help in the modernization of Somali forces.

Wednesday January 24, 2024

Somali President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud has warned Ethiopia against taking steps to implement a controversial port deal it brokered with the breakaway region of Somaliland.

Under a memorandum of understanding (MOU) signed on January 1, Somaliland leased landlocked Ethiopia 20km (12 miles) of its coastland around the port of Berbera, on the Gulf of Aden, for 50 years for military and commercial purposes.

In an exclusive interview with Al Jazeera on Tuesday, Mohamud said Ethiopian assets would have to cross into Somalia’s territory in order to reach the leased area and warned Addis Ababa against taking such a step.

“So far Ethiopians haven’t come into Somalia. If they will, then that will be a problem at a different level,” Mohamud said.

Egypt, which is involved in a separate dispute with Ethiopia over a major dam on the Blue Nile, has vowed to stand with Mogadishu in the Somaliland dispute. Mohamud said he discussed the recent developments with Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi but that the two sides did not discuss a joint military intervention.

“We haven’t discussed the Egyptian military coming to Somalia and we believe that the problem has not reached [that point] yet,” the Somali president said. “And that’s why we’re warning [Ethiopia]: don’t do it, please.”

Ethiopia is aiming to establish a marine force base in the land leased from Somaliland and obtain a port for maritime exports in the Red Sea and the Suez Canal, which could improve its access to Europe. Currently, Addis Ababa relies mainly on the smaller Djibouti for its port operations for inbound and outbound trade.

Somaliland, a region of Somalia that broke away in 1991 after a bloody war, has welcomed the deal as it looks for international recognition and economic opportunities beyond Mogadishu.

Somalia has been angered by the deal that bypasses its federal government and says it threatens the integrity of its own territory.

“This is a piece of land that belongs to Somalia and [we] will never yield to whatever pressure that comes on it,” Mohamud said.

The Somali head of state accused Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed of having kept him “in the dark” about the deal with Somaliland when they met in Djibouti in late December for “very good” talks on the “unity” of Somalia, just days before the MOU was signed.

Asked whether he thought there could be a win-win solution to the crisis, which has stoked fears of a prolonged diplomatic rift, he said the ball was in Ethiopia’s court.

“The question is not will Ethiopia access the sea. We want Ethiopia to have access to the sea, there is no question about that,” Mohamud said, adding that the federal government was ready to negotiate a deal with Addis Ababa. “But grabbing a piece of land, we are not ready for that.”

“They have to [initiate] a conducive environment to communicate, negotiate and to dialogue,” he added.

Mogadishu has claimed that the deal amounts to a landgrab, while Addis Ababa says the deal is of a commercial nature and is vital to its economic needs.

On January 17, the Arab League said it backed Somalia’s diplomatic efforts to tackle “this perilous situation”. Qatar, Turkey, the United States, the European Union and the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation have also urged Ethiopia to respect Mogadishu’s sovereignty.