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Somali referee Omar Abdulkadir Artan has made history as the first African and non-European referee to officiate the UEFA Super Cup.

The 34-year-old took charge of the 2026 UEFA Super Cup between UEFA Champions League winners Paris Saint-Germain and UEFA Europa League winners Aston Villa at the Red Bull Arena in Salzburg, Austria, on Wednesday. Paris Saint-Germain won the encounter 2–1.

Artan’s appointment was particularly significant given that he had been selected by FIFA to officiate at the 2026 FIFA World Cup but was unable to participate after being denied entry into the United States.

US authorities cited immigration and security-vetting concerns when Artan was stopped at Miami International Airport in June. 

FIFA subsequently confirmed that he would be unable to officiate at the tournament. 

Meanwhile, Artan denied allegations of any links to terrorism. 

UEFA, however, selected Artan for its prestigious season-opening fixture following discussions with the Confederation of African Football (CAF). 

The appointment was made under a cooperation agreement between UEFA and CAF with the aim of promoting collaboration, including in refereeing. 

Artan has established himself as one of Africa’s leading referees. 

He has been on the FIFA international referees list since 2018, officiated at the Africa Cup of Nations and the CAF Champions League, and was named CAF Men’s Referee of the Year in 2025. 

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A car packed with explosives blew up outside a hotel in Mogadishu on Saturday simultaneously as a minibus also exploded at a nearby junction.

Emergency services, such as Aamin Ambulance Service reported “many dead bodies”.

Witnesses also reported hearing gunfire and said the entire area around the Nasa Hablod hotel was sealed off by security forces to keep people away.

“A car loaded with explosives went off at the entrance of Nasa Hablod Hotel and there is gunfire,” police official Ibrahim Mohamed told AFP, saying it looked like a co-ordinated attack.

“There was another minibus loaded with explosives which went off a nearby intersection,” he said, confirming there were casualties but without giving an initial number.

The blasts occurred just two weeks after a huge truck bombing in the Somali capital which killed at least 358 people, making it the deadliest attack in the country’s history.

Somalia’s Aamin ambulance service said there were “many dead bodies” in a posting on its official Twitter feed, adding that it had already evacuated 15 wounded people from the area.

An AFP correspondent at the scene also reported seeing two people lying on the ground but their condition was not immediately clear.

The Nasa Hablod is a popular hotel located in the north of the city.

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Somalia President Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed on Saturday escaped death after Hotel Naasa-Hablood where he was scheduled to hold a political meeting was attacked by the al-Shabab terrorists group.

No fewer than 18 people were killed and more than 30 wounded as the Islamic militants attacked the hotel close to the presidential palace in Mogadishu as two suicide bombers detonated two car bombs outside the entrance.

The al-Shabab extremist group claimed responsibility for the attack on the hotel which is frequently used by politicians and other members of the city’s elite.

A third blast occurred when an attacker detonated a suicide vest.

Speaking to The Associated Press by telephone from the scene, Capt. Mohamed Hussein said more than 20 people, including government officials, were thought to be trapped as security forces battled extremists holed up on the top floor of the hotel.

Two of the five attackers were killed on the first floor, Hussein said. The others hurled grenades and cut off the building’s electricity as night fell.

A Reuters witness heard a loud explosion and smoke rose over the scene. Ambulance sirens could be heard.

“They are fighting inside. So far we do not have casualty figures,” Major Abdullahi Aden, a police officer, told Reuters.

The attack comes two weeks after more than 350 people were killed in a massive truck bombing on a busy Mogadishu street–the country’s worst-ever attack.

Al-Shabab often targets high-profile areas of Mogadishu.

Since the blast two weeks ago, President Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed has been visiting other countries in east Africa seeking more support for the fight against the extremist group.

A 22,000-strong multinational African Union force in Somalia is expected to withdraw its forces and hand over the country’s security to the Somali military by the end of 2020.

The U.S. military also has stepped up military efforts against al-Shabab this year in Somalia, carrying out nearly 20 drone strikes.

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MOGADISHU (Reuters) – At least 19 people were killed when Islamist attackers launched a car bomb and gun attack on a busy hotel and adjacent restaurant in the Somali capital, a police officer said on Thursday.

A car driven by a suicide bomber rammed into the Posh Hotel in south Mogadishu on Wednesday evening before gunmen rushed into Pizza House, an adjacent restaurant, and took 20 people hostage. Posh Hotel is the only venue with a discotheque in the capital.

Abdi Bashir told Reuters the Somali security forces took control of the restaurant at midnight after the gunmen held hostages inside for several hours. Five of the gunmen were killed, Bashir said.

“We are in control of the hotel but it was mostly destroyed by the suicide bomber,” he told Reuters by phone.

Witnesses said there were bodies lying at the scene on Thursday morning as ambulances came to take them away.

Al Shabaab, the Islamist militant group, claimed responsibility for the attack.

(Reporting by Faisal Omar; Writing by Duncan Miriri; Editing by Janet Lawrence)

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The number of dead from an attack on a military base in Somalia’s semi-autonomous Puntland region has risen to 59 from an earlier reported 38, a military officer said on Saturday.

In the attack on Thursday al Qaeda-linked al Shabaab fighters overran the base in Af Urur, a town about 100 km (60 miles) south of Bosaso.

“We confirm that the total number of deaths is 59, including six women, and the total number of injuries is 38,” Major Mohamed Abdi, a Puntland military officer, told Reuters by phone.

Af Urur lies near the Galgala hills, an area controlled by al Shabaab. Its fighters have attacked and captured the town several times.

Somalia’s president said the country’s army was in “hot pursuit” of the fighters after the attack.

Al Shabaab regularly launches attacks in Somalia, but often focuses on the capital Mogadishu and other regions controlled by the federal government. It aims to drive out African Union peacekeepers, topple Somalia’s Western-backed government and impose its strict version of Islam.

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Somalia’s president said late Thursday night the country’s army was in “hot pursuit” of Islamist group al Shabaab fighters after the insurgents’ assault on a military base in the Puntland region that left at least 38 people dead.

In the early Thursday attack, the Islamists overran a military base in Af Urur, a town about 100 km (60 miles) south of Bosaso, the capital of Puntland, one of Somalia’s semi-autonomous regions.

Most of those killed were soldiers, a Puntland security official said, adding 18 others were wounded, with an unknown number also feared captured alive.

In a statement, President Mohamed Abdullahi Farmaajo promised the Somali military would retaliate and avenge al Shabaab’s attack.

“We must show no mercy in dealing with Alshabab,” he said.

“We promise that Alshabab won’t get away with this. As of now, our troops are in hot pursuit of the enemy, they will pay for today’s attack.”

The al Qaeda-linked Islamist group cited a higher toll in the attack, saying it had killed 61 soldiers. Numbers given by officials and al Shabaab often differ.

Al Shabaab is fighting to topple Somalia’s central government and rule the country according to a strict version Islam’s sharia law. They also want to drive out the African Union peace keeping force AMISOM which is helping to defend the central government.

The group rarely carries out attacks in Puntland, where the security forces are relatively regularly paid and receive substantial U.S. assistance.

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Somalia’s Islamist al Shabaab group killed 20 soldiers in an attack on a military base in a town in the semi-autonomous Puntland region on Thursday, an officer said.

“It was heavy fighting. We lost 20 soldiers and 14 of our military cars were burnt. We have now retaken the town,” Major Mohamed Abdi, a Puntland military officer, told Reuters by phone.

Source – Reuters

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Somalia’s militant Islamist group al-Shabab says it has carried out a major assault on a military base in the semi-autonomous region of Puntland.

Its fighters killed 61 government troops and seized 16 vehicles in the dawn raid, the group said.

A Puntland government minister has denied the high death toll, but did not give separate casualty figures.

The al-Qaeda-linked group has carried out several big attacks on military bases in Somalia.

In January, it said it had killed 50 Kenyan soldiers in an assault on their base in Kolbiyow town in the south of the country.

Kenyan troops are part of an 18,000-strong African Union (AU) force helping the UN-backed government tackle al-Shabab in Somalia.

In the the latest attack, the militants withdrew after more than three hours of fighting with government forces, residents told the BBC.

The attack took place on the base near the remote Galgala Mountains, about 70km (43 miles) from the port city of Bosaso.

Confirming the attack, Puntland Security Minister Abdiaziz Hirsi said that an investigation was under way and details would be given later.

The Galgala Mountains are a stronghold of al-Shabab, but a faction of militants broke away in 2015 to affiliate themselves with the Islamic State group.

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MOGADISHU  – Somalia’s al Shabaab publicly cut off the right hands of two men on Thursday after a sharia court convicted them of breaking into a shop and stealing about $500, the al Qaeda-linked group said.

The two men had confessed to the theft in Tiyeglow district of the southern Bakool region and were ordered to refund the money, Moalim Gedow, al Shabaab’s Bakool governor told Reuters.

An al Shabaab ambulance then took the men to hospital, Abdullahi Madey, a Tiyeglow resident told Reuters.

Al Shabaab, which has been fighting for years to topple the central government and impose its own strict interpretation of Islamic law, carries out executions, floggings and amputations after summary trials in cases ranging from espionage to theft.

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The United Nations is seeking a further $900 million this year for Somalia, where more than 6 million people need humanitarian assistance and 275,000 malnourished children are at risk of starvation, Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said on Thursday.

“This morning we presented the revised humanitarian response plan seeking an additional $900 million to the end the year,” Guterres said in opening remarks to an international conference on Somalia hosted by British Prime Minister Theresa May.

Source – Reuters

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MOGADISHU – Al Shabaab fighters attacked a remote Somali army base northwest of the capital Mogadishu on Tuesday, killing several government soldiers, officials and the militants said.

The Islamist group, which has launched several attacks there in the last few years, said it had seized control of the entire town of Goofgaduud.

“We have captured Goofgaduud. We killed 16 soldiers in the fighting,” said Sheikh Abdiasis Abu Musab, Al Shabaab’s military operation spokesman.

Government and military officials were not immediately able to confirm the seizure of Goofgaduud, which lies about 250 km (160 miles) northwest of Mogadishu.

“Al Shabaab attacked our base in Goofgaduud in the morning and ambushed other forces that were sent for reinforcement,” said Mohamed Aden, a military official in the region.

“We lost at least seven soldiers and one military truck was burnt,” he told Reuters.

Al Shabaab’s casualty figures and those announced by officials often differ.

The group, which once ruled much of Somalia, has been fighting for years to impose its strict interpretation of Islam on Somalia.

African Union and Somali troops have driven it from urban strongholds and ports but they have often struggled to defend smaller, more remote areas from attacks.

Since losing large swathes of territory to the AU peacekeepers supporting the U.N.-backed government, the insurgents have frequently launched raids and deadly attacks in Mogadishu and other regions controlled by the federal government.

On Monday, at least eight people were killed after a suicide bomber rammed a car laden with explosives into a cafe in central Mogadishu.

Somalia has been mired in conflict since 1991, when clan-based warlords overthrew Siad Barre and then turned on each other.

Source – Reuters

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The Somali government says the leader of al-Shabab in the Lower Shabelle region and three of his associates have been killed in a raid in the village of Barire.

The Somali government identified the man as Moalin Osman Abdi Badil. In a statement by the Information Ministry the government says the operation on May 5 was conducted by the Somali national security forces.

The Somali government says the death the al-Shabab leader Badil “significantly disrupts” the group’s ability to operate in the Lower Shabelle region.

“The operation marks a turning point in our fight for security,” the statement read.

The Somali statement did not mention if U.S. were involved in the operation in Barire. Last Friday, the U.S. said a Navy SEAL was killed an operation to ‘advice and assist” the Somali national army in the same area.

US Navy SEAL killed

The U.S. Navy SEAL killed was identified as Senior Chief Special Warfare Operator Kyle Milliken. The 38-year-old is the first American service member killed in combat in the war-torn country since a deadly battle in 1993 — the clash that inspired the movie Black Hawk Down. At least two other Navy SEALs and an interpreter were wounded in the recent attack in the village of Barire, west of Mogadishu.

“This was a Somali mission,” Navy Captain Jeff Davis, a Pentagon spokesman, told reporters Friday. American forces were “operating in support of” the Somali units, in an attack targeting a compound associated with attacks on nearby facilities used by both U.S. and Somali forces, he added.

A former Somali army commander who is familiar with U.S. operations told VOA Somali he believes there was a small number of special U.S. forces and helicopters that accompanied Somali special forces to a targeted location.

Meanwhile, al-Shabab has published purported photos of items they said were left behind by the U.S. forces at the scene including a small-sized American flag, military clothes, a glove and electronic kits marked Fort Lauderdale. One of the photos also showed blood stains on the ground.

Security sources and officials in the Lower Shabelle region say Friday’s attack was led by Somalia’s Danab commando team, accompanied by U.S. special forces. Danab or “lightening” in English are Somali commandos trained by the US forces.

Last month, dozens of American soldiers deployed to Mogadishu for a separate mission to train and equip Somali and AMISOM (African Union Mission in Somalia) forces fighting extremism in Somalia, U.S. military officials told VOA.

Somali officials say more than 500 Somalia commandos have been trained by the U.S., and the Somali government has said it wants to increase the number of trained commandos to 4,000.

Source – VOA

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WASHINGTON — Al-Shabaab insurgents in Somalia have beheaded two government soldiers they captured on Saturday near the town of Mahaday, 35 kilometers north of Jowhar, and the provincial capital of Middle Shabelle region, officials and witnesses told VOA.

The head of the Somali National Army 30th contingent, which operates in the region, Lt. Col. Omar Ali Adow, told VOA’s Somali service about the soldiers’ beheadings.
“The militants intercepted a civilian passenger vehicle in which the two government soldiers were travelling. They [the soldiers] were off duty, un-uniformed and unarmed. They [the militants] forced them to get out off the car, took them to a nearby village and beheaded them,” Col. Adow said.
Colonel Adow added the soldiers left a government military camp in Biya Ade village and headed to Jowhar for family emergencies. He identified them as Mowlid Hussien and Ahmed Ya’qub.

The executions took place early Saturday morning at Qura’a Madobe Village, where dozens of residents, mostly women and children, watched as the militants beheaded the soldiers.

“They brought the men in front of a tea restaurant in the village. They told the residents they were captured enemy soldiers. One of the militants read a Quranic verse, and then two knife-wielding militants dressed in military camouflage got off a vehicle and beheaded the two men,” a witness told VOA on the condition of the anonymity.

The beheadings come a day after the militants killed a member of U.S. Special Forces and wounded three other members of an American team assisting Somali soldiers.

The Navy SEAL who died in the operation against al-Shabab was the first American service member killed in combat in the war-torn country since a deadly battle in 1993 that inspired the book and movie Black Hawk Down.

Source – VOA

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A member of the US military has been killed in Somalia, the first confirmed US combat death there since the 1993 disastrous Black Hawk Down incident.

This happened on Thursday during operations against al-Shabab militants about 64km (40 miles) west of the capital Mogadishu, near the town of Barii, the US military says.

Two other US service members were hurt.

US forces were on an “advise and assist” mission with the Somali National Army, the US military says.

American presidents have been wary of intervention in Somalia since 18 special forces soldiers died fighting militias in Mogadishu in 1993, a battle dramatised in the film Black Hawk Down.

However, President Donald Trump has expanded military action against the al-Qaeda affiliate in the Horn of Africa nation.America’s involvement: Analysis by Tomi Oladipo, BBC Africa security correspondent

The situation in Iraq made US boots on the ground abroad a touchy subject but this sensitivity is even worse when the foreign soil is in Somalia. Memories of the disastrous Black Hawk Down in 1993 are still vivid in Washington.

The preferred approach today is to enable local forces to provide their own security.

The US has been providing training and advice to Somalia’s special forces. This elite local group is expected to lead the fight against al-Shabab militants. For now, some of their operations are carried out with their US advisers alongside.

The wider Somali National Army has also been receiving US support. Last month dozens of American troops arrived in the country to train them. The UK and Turkey are also playing a similar role in this larger and more challenging task of building a sustainable Somali army.

US Africa Command spokeswoman Robyn Mack said the American “service member” had been struck by small arms fire.

Two other members of the US military wounded in the same incident were receiving “proper medical attention”, she added.

A US official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said a US Navy Seal had been killed, Reuters news agency reports.

In Thursday’s mission, US troops were hunting an al-Shabab commander near the Shabelle river, the news agency reports.

In March, Mr Trump approved a Pentagon plan to escalate operations against al-Shabab, including additional air strikes.

Last month, dozens of American soldiers were deployed to Mogadishu to train and equip Somali and African Union troops.

It was the first time regular US troops had been sent to Somalia since 1994, though some counter-terrorism advisers were already there.

Analysts say the soldier killed on Thursday would not have been one of the soldiers recently sent to Somalia.

Source – BBC

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A Somali government minister was shot dead Wednesday near the country’s presidential palace in Mogadishu.

The minister of public works and reconstruction, Abbas Abdullahi Sheikh Siraji, was declared dead after an exchange of gunfire Wednesday.

Witnesses told VOA’s Somali Service that the minister was shot after bodyguards of Somalia’s auditor general opened fire.

The auditor general, Nur Jimale Farah, said bodyguards in his vehicle suspected the car behind them carried a suicide bomber.

Farah says the shooting occurred Wednesday evening about 500 meters from the presidential palace, Villa Somalia.

Information Minister Abdirahman Omar Osman confirmed the death of Siraji on Twitter and said an investigation is under way.

Siraji was the youngest minister in the government and was among the first Somali refugees to return to the country from Kenya’s Dadaab refugee camp last year.

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A military court in Somalia has executed four men it said were al Shabaab militants who were behind a 2016 attack that killed 80 people, a military officer said on Tuesday.

The four men were executed in Baidoa, which lies about 245 km (150 miles) northwest of Mogadishu, on Monday. The same court executed on Tuesday a policeman who was accused of killing a civilian and wounding the victim’s two sons, officials said.

“Yesterday, four militants who had been behind blasts were executed. More men accused of being al Shabaab members will be executed today or tomorrow,” Major Nur Aden, a military officer in Baidoa, told Reuters.

In Tuesday’s execution, Ali Buubo Mohamed, a policeman, was shot by a firing squad after he was found guilty of killing Kassim Abdi and injuring his sons. He was sentenced to death last November.

Mumin Hussein Abdullahi, the deputy prosecutor of the court, confirmed that execution.

The four militants were found guilty of being responsible for twin blasts in Baidoa in February 2016, resulting in 80 deaths.

Al Shabaab often carries out such attacks in the capital and elsewhere in its bid to topple Somalia’s government and to drive out African Union peacekeeping troops. The al Qaeda-linked group wants to impose its harsh version of Islamic rule in Somalia.

Source – Reuters

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A military vehicle hit a roadside bomb in Somalia’s semi autonomous Puntland region on Sunday, killing at least six soldiers and injuring another eight, a military official told Reuters.

The al Qaeda linked Islamist group al Shabaab claimed responsibility for the attack, which happened on the outskirts of the region’s port city of Bosasso.

Al Shabaab is fighting to topple the Horn of Africa country’s western backed government and wants to rule the country according to its strict version of Islamic sharia law.

It also wants to drive out of Somalia Africa Union peace keeping force AMISOM that helps defend the country’s central government.

Mohamed Ibrahim, a major in Puntland’s military, told Reuters the vehicle, a pickup truck, was from Galgala hills, about 40 kilometers southwest of Bosasso.

“Our military pickup hit a roadside bomb today, six soldiers died, eight others were injured,” Ibrahim said, adding two of the injured were in a serious condition.

Sheikh Abdiasis Abu Musab, al Shabaab’s military operations spokesman, told Reuters the group had carried out the attack and that some troops had died while others were injured.

“We are behind the attack,” he said.

Al Shabaab once controlled much of Somalia but in 2011 it was driven out of the capital Mogadishu and has since lost most other former strongholds.

Source – Reuters

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MOGADISHU  – A roadside bomb killed 10 people in a minibus in southern Somalia on Thursday, a military officer and residents said, blaming Islamist militants who denied planting the device.

The blast in Golweyn village occurred hours after Somalia’s president replaced his security chiefs and called on al Qaeda-affiliated al Shabaab militants to surrender within 60 days in return for education and jobs.

“We have confirmed from residents there that at least 10 civilians died and 10 others were wounded,” Colonel Hassan Mohamed, a military officer in a nearby village, told Reuters.

“…al Shabaab controls Golweyn village and they planted bombs in all those roads.”

Al Shabaab governor for the Lower Shabelle region, Mohamed Abu Usama, said its fighters were not at the village, and put the number of dead at eight.

“We do not control Golweyn village and its surroundings. It is a battlefield between our mujahideen (jihadist fighters) and the so-called government forces,” he told Reuters by phone.

Residents said earlier in the day that government and African Union peacekeeping troops (AMISOM) had conducted an operation in the area near where the blast occurred.

Osman Ali, a shopkeeper in Bulamarer district where the minibus began its journey, said it had set off mid-afternoon.

“This evening we are told it got burnt in Golweyn… We called the phones of the passengers but none gets through. My cousin was also on board,” he told Reuters by phone.

The group has been driven out of its strongholds in Somalia by AMISOM and Somali army offensives, although it still controls some towns and rural areas and often launches guerrilla-style assaults and bomb attacks in the capital Mogadishu.

Source – Reuters

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BOSASSO, Somalia – Pirates have hijacked an Indian commercial ship off the coast of Somalia and the vessel is heading toward the shore, a former government anti-piracy official told Reuters on Monday.

“We understand Somali pirates hijacked a commercial Indian

ship and (it is heading) towards Somalia shores,” Abdirizak Mohamed Dirir, a former director of the anti-piracy agency in Somalia’s semi-autonomous Puntland region, said.

Graeme Gibbon-Brooks of UK-based Dryad Maritime Security said industry sources had told him the vessel was en route to Bosasso from Dubai when it was hijacked on Saturday.

The pirates were on board and were taking the ship and its 11 crew members to Eyl in Puntland, he said.

Last month, Somali pirates hijacked an oil tanker, the first commandeering of a vessel since 2012, but released it after a fight with Puntland’s marine force.

The hijacking followed an outpouring of anger by locals over foreign fishermen flooding into their waters, some of whom have licences to fish there.

Source – Reuters

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Camels are used to desert conditions but the severe drought in Somalia and breakaway Somaliland is taxing even these hardy animals. Thousands have died this year, dealing a major blow to herders who depend on camels for transportation, for milk, for meat and as pack animals. VOA’s Abdulaziz Osman spoke with some of the herders and filed this report from the Somaliland capital, Hargeisa.

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Hollywood actor Ben Stiller has teamed up with social media stars to raise $2 million for people facing starvation in Somalia amid a devastating drought.

The Zoolander actor is now trying to recruit other celebrities including Formula One champion Lewis Hamilton, Beauty and the Beast actress Emma Watson and model Carla Delevingne to support the Love Army for Somalia initiative which has already raised over $1.8 million since Friday.

An initial flight will take off next Monday with 60 tonnes of food for Somalia where more than 6 million people – about half the population – need help. [nL5N1GS5MJ]

The United Nations is warning that Somalia risks slipping back into famine as worsening drought leaves millions without food, water or healthcare in a country crippled by decades of war. [nL5N1FN2XJ]

The campaign began when Stiller’s friend, Vine and Snapchat personality Jerome Jarre, recorded a message on Twitter in which he pleaded with Turkish Airlines – that flies directly to Somalia – to fill one of its flights with food.

Stiller then recorded his own Twitter message urging the airline to take up the challenge.

“It’s kind of a crazy idea,” Stiller said in the video. “But I think it could work … and it could create a snowball effect to get people to take action.”

The group, which is raising money through fundraising platform GoFundMe, said Turkish Airlines had quickly come on board with a full cargo plane and the offer of shipping further deliveries to Somalia on its commercial aircraft.   Continued…

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MOGADISHU – Somalia’s new president named a 26-strong cabinet on Tuesday, including a former foreign affairs chief as finance minister and a BBC journalist as the country’s top diplomat.

President Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed – better known by his nickname, Farmajo – was sworn in last month after unseating Hassan Sheikh Mohamud, whose administration faced public and Western criticism for corruption scandals.

A dual U.S.-Somali citizen and a former prime minister, Mohamed has promised to tackle hunger, corruption and violence in Somalia, which has been mired in civil war for a quarter of a century.

On Tuesday, he named Abdirahman Duale Beyle as his finance minister and Yusuf Garaad Omar as foreign minister. Beyle, a former economist at the African Development Bank, served as foreign minister from 2014 to 2015. Omar, a dual British-Somali national, was head of the BBC’s Somali language service.

Other appointments included Abdi Farah Juha, a political novice who was named interior minister.

Last month, Mohamed made his first senior appointment by naming Hassan Ali Khaire, the former country director of the British company Soma Oil and Gas, as prime minister.

The appointment was controversial, because U.N. sanctions experts had previously accused Soma of paying Somalia’s oil ministry nearly $600,000 to protect a 2013 exploration contract. Britain’s Serious Fraud Office investigated but found insufficient evidence to prosecute.

Somalia has been in turmoil since 1991, hit by decades of conflict at the hands of clan militias. Over the past several years, it has faced an insurgency by al Qaeda-linked al Shabaab, which the government is battling with the help of regional troops.   Continued…

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Somali pirates on Thursday released a hijacked oil tanker and its eight-man Sri Lankan crew without any conditions or ransom payments.

The release followed a gunfight earlier in the day between the pirates and a marine force, and then intensive negotiations between the marine force, clan elders and the pirates.

Two people in the Somali town of Haabo were wounded as naval forces traded fire with men trying to ferry supplies to the tanker.

Witnesses told VOA’s Somali service that the navy of Somalia’s Puntland region intercepted a boat it thought was taking food to the gunmen holding the Aris 13 and its crew.

John Steed, regional manager of the watchdog group Oceans Without Piracy, told VOA, “They [the pirates] were given an offer they could not refuse — live or die. They were surrounded [with] nowhere to go, so pragmatism won in the end.”

Immunity grant reported

Officials said local elders negotiated the release of the Aris 13 and that as part of the negotiations, the pirates were allowed to leave the vessel and return to shore. The Puntland government also reportedly granted them immunity.

The Sri Lanka-flagged ship is owned by Armi Shipping SA and is operated by Aurora Ship Management, both based in the United Arab Emirates.

Gunmen in two skiffs hijacked the Aris 13 Monday off the coast of Somalia as it traveled from Djibouti to Mogadishu carrying fuel and gas.

The hijackers, who insisted they were fishermen, not pirates, said they wanted “compensation” for illegal fishing off the coast of Somalia, but did not make specific ransom demands.

Maritime and Somali regional officials said the hijackers moved the ship to Haabo from its original location off the coast of Alula to the west.

“We don’t have facts, but we heard perhaps they moved away from Alula because they received hostile reception from their locals and they felt under pressure to move,” Abdirazak Mohamed Dirir, Puntland counterpiracy director, told VOA.

Steed said there was nothing unusual about the move. “Haabo is a bit more difficult to get out, and so they may have felt it’s a safer anchorage for them, maybe they’ll have a better support where they can get additional guards,” he said.

First piracy in five years

The hijacking was the first time Somali pirates had taken over a commercial ship since 2012 and followed an outpouring of anger by locals over foreign fishermen flooding into their waters.

In their heyday in 2010, bands of Somali pirates hijacked nearly 50 ships and captured more than 1,000 sailors, causing an estimated $7 billion loss to the shipping industry.

Since then, piracy has virtually vanished, as ships adopted better security measures and international navies stepped up their patrols of Somali waters.

Steed said ships near Somalia should follow recommended safety practices, which include avoiding high-risk areas, sailing at high speed and in some cases carrying armed guards.

Faduma Yassin Jama and Smita Nordwall contributed to this report.

VOA

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WASHINGTON — 

For the second time this year, the United States has deported a group of Somalis to their home country.

A plane carrying 68 Somalis landed Friday at Mogadishu’s Aden Adde International Airport. The deportees were accompanied by agents of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), who handed them over to Somali authorities, officials say.

One of those deported, Nur Mohamed Mohamud, told VOA’s Somali Service that he had traveled through more than 10 countries over a two-month period to reach the U.S.

He said he was detained in Florida for 20 months before being sent home. “They rejected my asylum application. I was not a criminal,” he said.

Mohamud said the Somali Embassy in Washington issued the deportees travel documents that facilitated their return to Somalia.

Acting Somali Minister of Internal Security Abdirizak Omar Mohamed told state media that the government was informed about the deportees before their arrival in Mogadishu.

“There is no agreement between the Somali government and the United States about deportations, but these deportees were Somalis who had problems in detention who requested to be returned to Somalia,” he said.

This is the second time the U.S. has conducted a major deportation of Somali immigrants since Donald Trump became U.S. president on January 20. The first group of 90 Somalis was sent home by plane in late January.

Somalia’s ambassador to the United States, Ahmed Isse Awad, told VOA’s Somali service at the time that the immigrants had sent letters to the Somali Embassy in Washington requesting the deportation. All had been in detention centers or prisons.

Somalia is one of six countries affected by revised travel orders issued by Trump.

Somali President Mohamed Abdullahi Farmajo has called on Trump to lift the restrictions on Somalis coming to the U.S.

Source – VOA

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MOGADISHU (Reuters) – Somalia’s newly elected president on Thursday appointed the country director of British firm Soma Oil and Gas as the new prime minister, raising questions about possible conflicts of interest in the Horn of Africa country.

President Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed, known as “Farmajo”, named Hassan Ali Khaire as prime minister, state radio website Radio Muqdisho.net said.

“The president has requested Somali citizens to work with the prime minister,” the statement on Radio Muqdisho.net said.

Mohamed took office peacefully this month after legislators selected him from 21 possible candidates. A dual U.S.-Somali citizen with a reputation as a technocrat, he has promised to tackle hunger, corruption and violence in Somalia, which has been mired in civil war for a quarter of a century.

Khaire, his new prime minister, is a dual Norwegian citizen who once worked as a primary school teacher in Norway and also for the Norwegian Refugee Council before joining Soma Oil and Gas.

In 2015, U.N. sanctions experts accused the company of paying Somalia’s oil ministry nearly $600,000 to protect an 2013 energy exploration contract.

The accusation triggered an investigation by Britain’s Serious Fraud Office, but last December authorities concluded there was insufficient evidence to prosecute.

Khaire’s current status with Soma Oil was unclear on Thursday and the company did not return calls seeking comment.   Continued…

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LONDON (Reuters) – Britain will provide additional aid money to South Sudan, where famine has been declared in parts of the country, and to Somalia, where there is a credible risk of famine, the government said on Wednesday.

Britain will provide 100 million pounds ($125 million) to each country in 2017/18 in addition to existing flows of aid.

“The world faces a series of unprecedented humanitarian crises and the real threat of famine in four countries,” International Development Secretary Priti Patel said in a statement.

U.N. children’s agency UNICEF said on Tuesday that nearly 1.4 million children were at imminent risk of death in famines in South Sudan, Somalia, Nigeria and Yemen.

“These crises are being driven by conflict and drought and we must respond accordingly,” said Patel.

The statement said Britain’s new support would help bring food assistance to over 500,000 people in South Sudan and up to 1 million in Somalia.

Source – Reuters

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The United Nations’ children’s agency Unicef is warning that almost one-and-a-half million children are at risk of starvation in South Sudan, Nigeria, Yemen and Somalia.

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MOGADISHU (Reuters) – A blast from a suicide car bomb ripped through a market in Somali capital Mogadishu on Sunday, killing 18 people and wounding at least 25, a local official said, days after the country elected a new president.

Casualties were confirmed by Ahmed Abdulle Afrax, the mayor of Wadajir, the district of the city where the bombing happened.

“I was staying in my shop when a car came in into the market and exploded. I saw more than 20 people lying on the ground. Most of them were dead and the market was totally destroyed,” witness Abdulle Omar said.

Al Shabaab, the Islamist insurgent group that is fighting the U.N.-backed Somali government, did not immediately claim responsibility.

Al Shabaab has been able to carry out increasingly deadly bombings despite losing most of its territory in the country to African Union peacekeepers supporting Somali government.

This month, Somalia elected a new president, Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed. The dual U.S.-Somali citizen and former prime minister is better known by his nickname, “Farmajo”.

The Horn of Africa country has been torn apart by civil war since 1991. Aid agencies are warning that a severe drought has placed large swathes of the country at risk of famine.

Source – Reuters

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WASHINGTON — Officials in Somalia and breakaway Somaliland took bribes in exchange for authorizing a United Arab Emirates military base in the port city of Berbera, according to Somalia’s auditor general.

Auditor General Nur Jimale Farah is one of several observers questioning the propriety of the UAE base deal, which Somaliland’s parliament overwhelmingly approved Sunday.

In an interview with VOA’s Somali service, Jimale accused senior officials in Somaliland and the government of Somalia’s former President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud of backing the deal for the sake of “illegitimate private gains.”

He also questioned Somaliland’s right to reach an agreement with the UAE. Somaliland considers itself independent from Somalia, but is not recognized by any country.

“The deal has none of the legal provisions needed and did not go through Somalia’s legitimate public procurement, financial institutions and the parliament. Therefore, it is corrupted and illegal,” Jimale said.

“We know that individuals within the leadership of Somalia and Somaliland were invited to Dubai and that they were corrupted with bags full of cash to sign the agreement,” he added.

Deal looked ‘very secretive’

Jimale would not specify the individuals allegedly involved in the deal, and VOA could not independently verify the allegations.

Somaliland’s representative to the UAE, Bashe Awil Omer, denied the bribery accusation. “It is baseless and we categorically deny it,” he told VOA. “If they have an evidence for such allegation, they should show to the public.”

Speaking to VOA on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to comment on this issue, a senior official in Somalia’s foreign ministry refused to deny or confirm the corruption allegations, but said neither the ministry nor the Somali cabinet was given a chance to discuss the UAE deal.

“We heard about the deal, which looked very secretive,” the official said. “It was not brought before the cabinet and the foreign ministry office. When we asked about it, we were told that the president and the prime minister’s offices were dealing with it.”

Somali’s former president Hassan Sheikh Mohamud is escorted as he leaves a meeting in Ethiopia’s capital Addis Ababa, Jan. 30, 2017.

Abdiwahab Abdisamad, an independent Nairobi-based Horn of Africa analyst, said he also heard the agreement got a secret green light from the outgoing Mohamud administration.

“As the reliable sources we are getting from the ground indicate, before Somaliland, authorities within the administration of the former head of state Hassan Sheikh Mohamud signed the agreement and Somaliland put it into vote at its parliament, only to send a message that it is a Somaliland project rather than a Somalia project,” Abdisamad said.

Somaliland’s Wadani and OCID opposition parties have described the agreement as illegal and unconstitutional.

A ship is docked at the Berbera port in Somalia, May 17, 2015.

Strategic importance of base

The agreement calls for the UAE to operate a base in Berbera for 25 years. Previously, Somaliland signed a deal with a UAE international port operator DP World. That deal would upgrade the port of Berbera, the largest in Somaliland.

Being part of a coalition that has been fighting Houthi rebels in Yemen, the UAE already has a military facility at Eritrea’s Assab port for use. The Berbera base, which is only 90 kilometers from the shores of Yemen, will help it tighten the coalition blockade on the rebels.

Somali analysts say the base will be less of a headache for the UAE than the one in Eritrea, which is under United Nations sanctions.

Speaking at the parliament session, Somaliland’s President Ahmed Silanyo said that the military base would benefit Somaliland and help create jobs.

In an interview with VOA on Monday, Somaliland Aviation Minister Farhan Adan Haybe said the deal has gone through all the Somaliland legal channels and therefore would be valid.

“The base is on a lease. It can’t be used by any other nation except the UAE, and can’t be subleased.” Haybe told VOA.

However, Jimale called on the UAE to back out of the deal, saying it violated Somalia’s national and territorial integrity.

“UAE has already violated our national sovereignty and airspace because of its plans to come to Somaliland without paying air space tax and without the permission of Somalia’s legitimate government,” Jimale said. “We ask UAE to respect the international code of conduct.”

– VOA

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WASHINGTON —  The parliament of the break-away republic of Somaliland has overwhelming approved a deal to allow the United Arab Emirates to establish an air and naval base in the port town of Berbera.

Somaliland President Ahmed Mohamed Silanyo presented the motion on Sunday to a joint session by both houses of the parliament, saying “it will attract investments, and it will not bring any harm to Somaliland or the region.”

A number of lawmakers angrily opposed the motion and shouted against the president before they were removed form parliament. The motion then passed with the support of 144 out of 151 lawmakers.

If signed, the deal gives the UAE a strong military foothold in the Horn of Africa.

The UAE had already secured a military base in the port of Assab in Eritrea. Observers say UAE plans to have a long-term military bases to monitor naval traffics in the Horn of Africa and the Red Sea.

Somaliland’s Aviation Minister Farhan Adan Haybe said the deal is valid for 25 years, and after it expires the Somaliland government will “own the military base and all the investments made by UAE.”

“The base is on a lease, it can’t be used any other nation except the UAE and can’t be sub-leased,” the minister said.

FILE – Small boats and old wrecked ships litter the harbor of Berbera, Somaliland, Aug. 16, 2016. (J. Patinkin/VOA)

In return the UAE has agreed to implement in Somaliland various development projects, including modernizing highways.

The deal follows a $442-million agreement with a Dubai-based Company (DP World) to upgrade the port of Berbera. The deal signed in September will transform Berbera port into a major Red Sea shipping stop.

The UAE government is among various countries assisting Somalia’s regional administrations in their fight against al-Shabab militants.

Somaliland declared its independence from the rest of Somalia in 1991, but no country has so far recognized its independence bid.

– VOA

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By Abdi Sheikh

MOGADISHU (Reuters) – Thousands of Somalis fired guns in the air, cheered atop military vehicles and slaughtered camels on Thursday to celebrate the election of anti-corruption campaigner Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed as president.

Protected from Islamist attack inside the heavily fortified airport compound, lawmakers voted on Wednesday to elect the former U.S. state worker, beating incumbent Hassan Sheikh Mohamud whose government repeatedly faced corruption scandals.

“Please fight corruption as you promised when you were campaigning for president,” said Mohamed Jamaa, a resident of Mogadishu, who had joined crowds in the capital.

Western donors welcomed his election. The European Union urged him to tackle corruption, while the United States called the transition a “step forward” despite concerns about irregularities. Opponents had accused each other of vote buying.

In the central Somali towns of Dhusamareb and Guriel, a region where many are now facing a severe food crisis because of drought, the local authorities slaughtered camels and goats to hand out the meat to the poor.

Mohamed, a former prime minister better known in Somalia by his nickname “Farmajo” due to his love of cheese as a child, told lawmakers shortly after his election that his “core value is justice, to help the poor people”.

But the dual U.S.-Somali citizen, who worked for years in the New York State Department of Transport, faces an uphill task. The aid-dependent state faces an imminent food crisis, empty coffers and an Islamist insurgency.

Abdirashid Hashi, an political analyst who worked in Mohamed’s cabinet when he was prime minister between 2010 and 2011, called him “a populist politician, saying all the right stuff the demoralized citizens of Somalia want to hear.”

“His detractors charge that it is a bit naive thinking that populism can undo Somalia’s quarter-century quagmire,” he said. “Somalia’s problems are much bigger than one individual.”

Soldiers and members of the security forces at the sharp end of the fight against al Shabaab militants are among the most worryingly demoralised parts of society, constantly complaining that meagre salaries are often delayed or not even paid.

Some remember fondly the new president’s period as prime minister, when they say wages were paid on time.

“We never missed one month’s salary when Farmajo was prime minister,” said Colonel Ali Abdirahman, a senior police officer.

The new president said he planned to get down to work immediately. When he left the airport on Wednesday night, he told cheering crowds to return to the safety of their homes in a city that is often attacked by al Shabaab militants.

(Additional reporting by Reuters Television; Writing by Edmund Blair; Editing by Tom Heneghan)

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MOGADISHU (Reuters) – Gunfire echoed across the Somali capital on Wednesday evening during the second round of voting by lawmakers for their president, a Reuters witness said.

The reason for the firing was not immediately clear, but it appeared to be celebratory as it erupted as former Prime Minister Mohamed Abdullahi Farmajo took a strong lead in the vote, over incumbent Hassan Sheikh Mohamud. A third candidate was trailing further behind.

None of the trio seemed on course to secure the necessary votes to avoid a third round face-off between the top two.

(Reporting by Abdi Sheikh; Writing by Edmund Blair)

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MOGADISHU (Reuters) – Mohamed Abdullahi Farmajo, a U.S.-educated former prime minister, was sworn in as Somalia’s new president on Wednesday after lawmakers gave him an unassailable lead in the second round of an election in Mogadishu’s secure airport compound.

Celebratory gunfire erupted across the city at his victory. Outgoing President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud conceded defeat as it became clear he could not win a third round.

“This is a victory for Somalia and the Somalis,” Farmajo told lawmakers who had gathered in a hall behind the airport’s blast walls to vote. He was sworn in moments earlier.

(Reporting by Abdi Sheikh; Writing by Edmund Blair; editing by John Stonestreet)

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BOSASSO, Somalia (Reuters) – Somalia’s al Shabaab militants stormed a hotel in the capital of the semi-autonomous Puntland region, Bosasso, on Wednesday, killing four guards, while two of the attackers also died, a senior official said.

“Three al Shabaab fighters stormed the International Village Hotel this morning. Four guards and two of the attackers died in the fighting,” Yusuf Mohamed, the governor of Bari region, told Reuters.

“Fortunately, the attackers did not enter the rooms. The fighting took place inside the compound. A third fighter escaped and we are pursuing him. All the people in the hotel are safe.”

(Reporting by Abdiqabni Hassan; Writing by George Obulutsa; Editing by Robert Birsel)

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MOGADISHU (Reuters) – Al Shabaab militants in Somalia publicly beheaded four men accused of spying for the country’s Western-backed government, the United States and neighbouring Kenya, residents in the south of the Horn of Africa country said.

The al Qaeda-linked group confirmed the executions, which took place on Sunday after the men were found guilty by an al Shabaab court in Jamame district of lower Jubba region, some 70 km (43 miles) north of Kismayu.

“The court ruled on their cases and four of the men were executed publicly in Jamame District according to the Sharia this (Sunday) afternoon,” Mohamed Abu Abdalla, al Shabaab’s governor for the Jubba region, told Reuters, without elaborating on the method of execution.

“The four men admitted they were spies.”

In areas under its control, al Shabaab has carried out executions, floggings and amputations after summary trials in cases ranging from espionage to theft.

Al Shabaab has been fighting for years to drive out African Union peacekeepers, topple the central government and impose its own harsh interpretation of Sharia (Islamic law) in country.

(Reporting by Feisal Omar; Editing by George Obulutsa)

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By Abdiqani Hassan

BOSASSO, Somalia (Reuters) – Three of five people abducted by Islamic State-affiliated fighters in Somalia’s semi-autonomous region of Puntland last weekend were found beheaded on Wednesday, a government official told Reuters.

The five people were abducted by fighters from the militant Islamist group last weekend in Qandala, a port city on Puntland’s Gulf of Aden coast.

Somalia has been mired in lawlessness and violence at the hands of various armed groups since the deposing of dictator Mohammed Siad Barre in the early 1990s.

Islamist group al Shabaab, which is affiliated with al Qaeda, a rival of Islamic State (IS), has sowed much of the chaos in the Horn of Africa country in recent years.

“IS beheaded three of the civilians they had abducted days ago,” Jamac Mohamed Khuurshe, commissioner for Qandala district told Reuters on Wednesday.

“We saw the three … beheaded bodies lying outside Qandala town this morning.”

He said the two remaining civilians were still missing.

There was no immediate independent confirmation of who was responsible for the beheading although IS is widely known to carry out decapitations of enemies.

IS fighters wrested control of Qandala from Putland’s military in October last year, cutting off the town’s communications and forcing many residents to flee.

Puntland forces retook the town in December.

Islamic State has been seeking recruits in Puntland although experts say the scale of its force is unclear and it remains a small player compared to al Shabaab. [nL8N1CW4PC]

Somalia’s parliament is due to elect a new President on Feb. 8, which should help anchor the Western-backed but still fragile and unstable central government.

Al Shabaab lost control of Somali capital Mogadishu in 2011 and has since been pushed from many of its former strongholds.

The group remains a potent menace, however, and has staged frequent bombings in Mogadishu and assaults on bases of both Somalia’s national army and African Union-mandated peacekeeping force AMISOM which is helping to defend the central government.

(Writing by Elias Biryabarema; Editing by Catherine Evans)

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By Abdi Sheikh and Feisal Omar

MOGADISHU (Reuters) – The Islamist group al Shabaab said on Friday its fighters killed dozens of Kenyan troops when they attacked a remote military base in Somalia the previous day, a claim the Kenyan army denied.

A spokesman for al Shabaab, which often launches attacks on troops of the African Union’s AMISOM force, said its fighters killed at least 57 Kenyans at the base in the southern town of Kulbiyow, near the Kenyan border.

“That is false,” Kenyan military spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Paul Njuguna told Reuters, in reference to al Shabaab’s claim that 57 soldiers were killed although he did not give any casualty figures.

“The operation is ongoing. We are receiving updates,” the officer added.

Kenyan television channel NTV reported in a headline that “several KDF (Kenya Defence Forces) soldiers believed killed” in the raid and heavy fighting was reported.

In January 2016, al Shabaab said it had killed more than 100 Kenyan soldiers in El Adde, a Somali camp near the border with Kenya. The Kenyan military never gave details of casualties, but Kenya media reports suggested a toll of that magnitude.

“We are pursuing the Kenyan soldiers who ran away into the woods,” Sheikh Abdiasis Abu Musab, al Shabaab’s military operation spokesman, told Reuters about Friday’s attack.

“Two mujahideen (fighters) rammed suicide car bombs into the base in Kulbiyow town before storming it,” he said, adding that as well as counting 57 Kenyan bodies, the group seized vehicles and weapons.

“We have taken over the base.”

Al Shabaab, whose assessment of casualties often differs markedly from official versions, typically rams the entrance to a target site with a car or truck bomb so fighters can storm in.

The group, which once ruled much of Somalia, wants to topple the Western-backed government in Mogadishu and drive out the peacekeepers made up of soldiers from Kenya, Djibouti, Uganda, Ethiopia and other African countries.

Driven out from the capital Mogadishu in 2011, al Shabaab has been fighting for years to impose its strict interpretation of Islam on Somalia.

African Union and Somali troops have driven al Shabaab fighters from major urban strongholds and ports, but they have often struggled to defend smaller, more remote areas from attacks.

(Writing by Aaron Maasho; Editing by Edmund Blair)

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By Abdi Sheikh and Feisal Omar

MOGADISHU (Reuters) – Islamist militants rammed a car bomb into the gate of a hotel in Somalia’s capital Mogadishu on Wednesday, jumped clear and stormed inside on Wednesday, killing 28 people, government and medical officials said.

Gunfire rang out as four militants burst into the Dayah Hotel, which is popular with politicians. A second explosion shook the area shortly afterwards, injuring several journalists and other people nearby.

“Well-armed mujahideen (militants) attacked the hotel and now they are fighting inside the hotel,” said an announcer on Andalus radio, which is linked to the al Shabaab jihadist group. Al Shabaab claimed responsibility for the attack.

Security forces eventually shot dead all four militants and managed to secure the building, according to Abdifatah Omar, the Mogadishu municipality spokesman. Government websites confirmed this, quoting the security minister.

“We have confirmed 28 people died and 43 others injured in the two blasts at the hotel,” Abdikadir Abdirahman, director of the Mogadishu’s ambulance services, told Reuters.

Duniye Mohamed, a doctor at Madina hospital, had earlier said some of the people taken there were very seriously wounded. Security Minister Abdirizak Umar had earlier put the death toll at 15, including four security personnel.

The secondary explosion sent a plume of flame high up over the hotel and several buildings and cars in the vicinity were destroyed.

Until 2011, al Shabaab controlled much of the Horn of Africa country including Mogadishu. Its militants often stage bomb and gun attacks in the capital in their quest to topple the Western-backed government and impose their own strict interpretation of sharia (Islamic law) on the nation.

In the past two years, African Union and Somali government forces have driven al Shabaab out of important urban strongholds but it remains active from bases in rural areas.

Somalia swore in nearly 300 members of parliament last month and they are due to pick the president but that vote has repeatedly been postponed. It is now due to be held on Feb. 8, said a parliamentary official who did not wish to be named.

(editing by Mark Heinrich)

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MOGADISHU (Reuters) – At least 13 people were killed on Wednesday in Somalia’s capital Mogadishu when al Shabaab militants rammed a car bomb into the gate of a hotel and stormed inside, police said.

“At least 13 people, including forces and civilians, died in two blasts at the hotel. A dozen others were injured,” Major Mohamed Ahmed, a police officer, told Reuters, adding that the death toll could rise.

(Reporting by Abdi Sheikh; Writing by Aaron Maasho; Editing by Edmund Blair)

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MOGADISHU (Reuters) – At least four soldiers were killed and five wounded on Tuesday when a roadside bomb that Islamist insurgents said they planted exploded outside a military camp in a town near Mogadishu, officials said.

The blast in Afgoye, about 30 km (18 miles) southwest of the capital, took place a day after the al Shabaab group carried out a raid in the same town that was repulsed by government troops, Major Osman Abdulle, a police officer, told Reuters.

“Last night, we repulsed the militants who attacked us. They must have planted the bomb,” he said.

Al Shabaab, which has been waging an insurgency across Somalia, claimed responsibility for the bombing. The group is fighting to topple the Western-backed government in Mogadishu.

“We planted the bomb last night. At least seven soldiers died,” Sheikh Abdiasis Abu Musab, the group’s military operations spokesman, told Reuters.

(Reporting by Abdi Sheikh and Feisal Omar; Writing by Aaron Maasho; editing by John Stonestreet)

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By Feisal Omar

MOGADISHU (Reuters) – Somali Islamist group al Shabaab shot two men and a teenager in southern Somalia on Tuesday, saying one of the men and the 15-year-old had been seen having gay sex, while the other man was found guilty of spying, a senior al Shabaab official said.

Hundreds of civilians gathered in a field in the town of Buale to watch them being shot, the second time al Shabaab has killed men accused of homosexuality, the official said, without giving details of the previous killing.

Homosexuality and gay sex is outlawed in most of Africa’s 54 states and can be punishable by imprisonment.

“The judge read their charges publicly and the three men were found guilty. They were executed according to the Islamic sharia. They were shot dead in Buale town,” Sheikh Mohamed Abu Abdalla, a regional governor for al Shabaab, told Reuters.

A Somali government official said any case of homosexuality in Muslim Somalia would be dealt with according to sharia law, although he did not specify what that would mean in practice.

Al Shabaab militants are fighting against Western-backed government forces in Mogadishu in a bid to impose its strict interpretation of Islamic, or sharia, law.

The al Shabaab governor said 20-year-old Isak Abshirow and 15-year-old Abdirizak Sheikh Ali were found committing a homosexual act by al Shabaab fighters.

Saeed Mohamed Ali was found guilty of spying for Ethiopian troops, who form part of an African force that has been fighting the militants.

The Islamist group once controlled the capital and much of Somalia but it lost control of Mogadishu in 2011 and has slowly been driven back into smaller pockets of territory since then.

(Additional reporting by Abdi Sheikh; Writing by Edmund Blair; Editing by Louise Ireland)

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MOGADISHU (Reuters) – A car bomb wounded at least four U.N. guards when it exploded near a United Nations compound in Somalia’s capital Mogadishu on Wednesday, police said.

Al Qaeda-allied al Shabaab insurgents claimed responsibility for the attack.

The bomb was planted in a car parked in a garage outside facilities belonging to the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), Osman said.

“We are behind the blast that injured at least three U.N. guards this morning,” al Shabaab’s spokesperson on military operations, Sheikh Abdiasis Abu Musab, said.

The militants often carry out such attacks in the capital in their fight to topple the Western-backed government and impose an strict interpretation of Islam on Somali territory.

(Reporting by Feisal Omar and Abdi Sheikh; Writing by Aaron Maasho)

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MOGADISHU (Reuters) – Suicide bombers attacked the main peacekeeping base in Somalia’s capital on Monday, killing at least three Somali security officers, police said.

Islamist al Shabaab militants, who want to topple the Western-backed government, said they carried out the assault near Mogadishu’s main airport, an area used by several embassies, aid groups and telecoms companies.

One bomber drove a car into a checkpoint outside the headquarters of the African Union peacekeeping force AMISOM, killing three Somali officers stationed there, police officer Mohamed Ahmed said.

Another vehicle then drove through towards the base’s main gates but came under fire from peacekeepers.

“It exploded about 200 metres from the gate. Civilian buildings were damaged,” AMISOM said on its Twitter feed.

The powerful blasts damaged the front of the nearby Hotel Peace, though there were no immediate reports of casualties there. The burned-out shell of one of the wrecked vehicles lay outside.

Al Shabaab’s military spokesman Sheikh Abdiasis Abu Musab said the fighters had intended to attack the hotel, as African leaders seeking a solution to Somalia’s decades-long turmoil had met there last year.

Nearly 300 members of Somalia’s federal parliament were sworn in last week after elections and are expected to pick a new president.

(Reporting by Abdi Sheikh and Feisal Omar; Writing by Duncan Miriri; Editing by Andrew Heavens)

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At least three people were killed when a suicide attacker set off a car bomb at a checkpoint outside the main base of an African Union peacekeeping force in the Somali capital on Monday, police said.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility.

Islamist al Shabaab militants, who want to topple the Western-backed government, have carried out similar attacks in the past.

“So far we know three of the security forces died. We believe al Shabaab is behind the attack,” Mohamed Ahmed, a police officer, told Reuters.

He said the death toll was likely to go up because the bomb was powerful and it had caused damage even to nearby residential buildings.

A Reuters photographer at the scene saw the burnt-out shell of the bomber’s car and another vehicle nearby on fire.

Nearly 300 members of Somalia’s federal parliament were sworn in last week and they are expected to pick a new president.

Source: Reuters 

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By Abdi Sheikh and Feisal Omar

MOGADISHU (Reuters) – Islamist militants have beheaded eight Somali village elders and killed at least seven other people during fighting spurred by a dispute over payment of an Islamic tax, a villager and a local official said on Wednesday.

Villagers in the semi-autonomous region of Galmadug in central Somalia also killed 10 militants during three days of fighting, the villager said, adding that Somali authorities had provided no help or support.

The Islamist insurgent group al Shabaab is battling a weak United Nations-backed government in Mogadishu in an effort to impose its strict interpretation of Islamic law in areas of the country it controls.

“Al Shabaab ordered us to pay dozens of animals for zakat (Islamic tax) and we rejected this – that is how the fighting started. We killed 10 militants on the first day,” local elder Nur Abdullahi told Reuters.

“So al Shabaab came from every region and fiercely attacked us in five villages. They beheaded eight elders and shot dead seven others on Monday and Tuesday.”

“They cut off the phones. We ran out of bullets, food and water. We have fled into the jungle and neither (forces from) Galmudug nor the federal government is helping us. They (the militants) took our borehole machine, a herd of camel and burnt two of our villages,” he said.

THOUSANDS FLEE

The insurgents could not be immediately reached for comment, but a local official largely confirmed Abdullahi’s account of the incident.

“The people are suffering from drought and rejected the zakat imposed by the militants. Some elders were beheaded,” Abdi Hussein Mohamed, deputy governor of the Mudug region in Galmudug, told Reuters on Wednesday.

“Shabaab also burnt two villages and thousands of families fled. The area is 300 kilometers away from us and we cannot help them because we are engaged in the election. The federal government has not saved the civilians.”

Government troops drawn from clan militias often go unpaid for months at a time and have little equipment or training. Many of them are used as bodyguards by candidates standing in the Horn of Africa nation’s complex elections.

In a process likely to last until mid-December, some 14,000 voters – in a country with an estimated population of about 10.5 million – representing Somalia’s federal states are choosing 275 lawmakers. The legislators will eventually pick a new president.

Al Shabaab has vowed to disrupt the elections, and the government and the United Nations say the threat of violence prevented a broader vote involving the whole population.

(Writing by Katharine Houreld; Editing by Gareth Jones)

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By Abdiqani Hassan

BOSASSO, Somalia (Reuters) – Islamist insurgents killed four pro-government Somali soldiers and injured 11 others when a roadside bomb destroyed a military pickup in the north of the country on Tuesday, the military said.

Al Shabaab claimed responsibility for the attack in the Galgala hills, an insurgent stronghold about 30 km (20 miles) to the southwest of Bosasso, the largest city in the region.

“A roadside bomb destroyed our pickup as we drove from Galgala hills today. We lost four soldiers, including a female soldier, and 11 men from our forces were injured,” Major Mohamed Ibrahim, a military officer in the semi-autonomous region of Puntland, told Reuters.

Sheikh Abdiasis Abu Musab, al Shabaab’s military operation spokesman told Reuters by telephone: “We completely destroyed the military pickup outside Bosasso – none escaped – all 17 soldiers on board perished.”

The insurgency routinely exaggerates the number of casualties killed in its attacks.

The deaths come as hundreds of forces allied to the Western-backed government prepare to retake the northern port town of Qandala from a group that has splintered from al Shabaab and pledged allegiance to the Islamic State group. [nL8N1DT3OC]

Qandala is about 70 km to the east of Bosasso and has been under the control of Abdiqadir Mumin, a Somali insurgent leader, for about a month.

“We are also evaluating the situation and we shall attack the IS as soon as possible,” Jamac Mohamed Khurshe, the mayor of Qandala told Reuters on Tuesday. Hundreds of pro-government militia began moving towards Qandala on Monday.

Somalia has been riven by civil war for more than 25 years. Al Shabaab, which has ties to al Qaeda, is fighting the government to impose their own strict version of Islamic law but has lost much of the territory they used to control.

Mumin’s group, which renounced al Shabaab in favour of Islamic State, is not thought to number more than a couple of hundred fighters. It has no publicly known operational links to Islamic State in the Middle East.

(Additional reporting by Feisal Omar and Abdi Sheikh in Mogadishu; Writing by Katharine Houreld; Editing by Alison Williams)

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By Abdiqani Hassen

BOSASSO, Somalia (Reuters) – Hundreds of pro-government Somali forces began moving toward the port town of Qandala on Monday for an offensive against Islamic State fighters who seized it last month, Qandala’s mayor said.

The forces include militia fighters, soldiers from the semi-autonomous region of Puntland and fighters from the same clan as Abdiqadir Mumin, the Somali insurgent leader who has pledged allegiance to Islamic State, Somali security officials said.

“We and our forces left Bosasso today with the intention to capture to Qandala, which is now only 100 km (60 miles) away from us. We shall keep on moving until we liberate the town,” Jamac Mohamed Khurshe told Reuters.

Bosasso is a major Somali city.

There were at least 400 clan fighters, an official added, but he did not know the size of the other two components of the pro-government forces.

Mumin and his men splintered from al Shabaab, a much larger Islamist insurgent force that is fighting the Western-backed Somali government to impose a strict interpretation of sharia law. No evidence has yet emerged of major operational ties between Mumin’s men and Islamic State in the Middle East.

Qandala is the first town Mumin’s men took since emerging as a rival force to al Shabaab a year ago. Residents in villages along the road to Qandala said Mumin’s men planted numerous bombs along the route.

(Reporting by Abdiqani Hassan; Writing by Katharine Houreld; Editing by Alison Williams)

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MOGADISHU (Reuters) – Somalia’s prime minister said on Saturday he had secured a ceasefire between two warring regions in the Horn of Africa nation, two weeks after a peace deal collapsed leading to fighting that killed at least 29 people.

The Galmudug and Puntland semi-autonomous regions have a history of clashes and the latest round of fighting between their forces two weeks ago erupted after a dispute over buildings planned in Galkayo, a city that is divided between the two sides.

“Prime Minister (Omar) Sharmarke travelled to Galkayo and over (the) last week worked to negotiate an immediate ceasefire and an initiation of preliminary talks for a lasting peace agreement,” a statement from his office said.

The statement said Sharmarke met Galmudug President Abdikarim Hussein Guled and Puntland President Abdiweli Mohamed Ali and witnessed a troop pull-back from the area where they clashed, and will have a four-kilometre buffer zone.

“What happened over the last month and weeks in Galkayo is very unfortunate. It is the responsibility of all here and absent to make sure we do not see a repeat,” Sharmarke said.

Somalia has been hit by conflict since the downfall of dictator Mohamed Siad Barre in early 1990s, and Islamist militant group al Shabaab has been one of the main causes of unrest in the last two decades.

(Reporting by Abdi Sheikh; Writing by George Obulutsa; Editing by Stephen Powell)

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ary’s Africa Command said the air strike was carried out at the request of Puntland Security Forces “and our own assessment of the situation.”

A PSF-led patrol had come under attack by a group of armed fighters and in response, “the U.S. conducted a self-defense strike to neutralize the threat, killing 10 armed fighters and wounding three others,” the statement said.

A review of the strike, which began Oct. 4, determined that “The armed fighters were initially believed to be al-Shabaab but with further review it was determined they were local militia forces,” it said.

“Operating under legal authorities, U.S. forces lawfully utilized self-defense to support the PSF in response to hostile actions conducted by the armed group against a partnered force,” the review concluded. “No U.S. forces were killed or injured as a result of this incident.”

(Editing by Jonathan Oatis and David Gregorio)

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By Warren Strobel

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A September U.S. air strike in Somalia killed local militia forces and not al Shabaab militants as the Pentagon had initially believed, the U.S. military acknowledged in a draft statement obtained by Reuters on Thursday.

The Sept. 28 strike in Somalia’s Galkayo area killed 10 fighters and wounded three, the statement said. No civilian casualties were caused by the strike, it said.

Somalia’s government had asked the United States to explain the strike, which it said had been conducted against forces of the semi-autonomous, northern region of Galmudug.

The errant strike illustrated the perils of Washington’s efforts to battle al Shabaab, an al Qaeda-aligned group, by working with armed Somali factions that are often feuding.

Shabaab has been responsible for numerous attacks, including the September 2013 siege of Kenya’s Westgate shopping mall that left at least 67 dead.

The day after the Sept. 28 U.S. strike in Somalia, officials in Galmudug accused a rival region, Puntland, of duping the United States into believing members of its security forces were in fact Islamist rebels.

An al Shabaab spokesman told Reuters at the time it did not have any fighters in the area of the strike.

The draft statement by the U.S. military’s Africa Command said the air strike was carried out at the request of Puntland Security Forces “and our own assessment of the situation.”

A PSF-led patrol had come under attack by a group of armed fighters and in response, “the U.S. conducted a self-defense strike to neutralize the threat, killing 10 armed fighters and wounding three others,” the statement said.

A review of the strike, which began Oct. 4, determined that “The armed fighters were initially believed to be al-Shabaab but with further review it was determined they were local militia forces,” it said.

“Operating under legal authorities, U.S. forces lawfully utilized self-defense to support the PSF in response to hostile actions conducted by the armed group against a partnered force,” the review concluded. “No U.S. forces were killed or injured as a result of this incident.”

(Editing by Jonathan Oatis and David Gregorio)

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MOGADISHU (Reuters) – Two Somali soldiers died and five others were injured when a car bomb claimed by Islamist group al Shabaab exploded on Saturday near the parliament in the capital Mogadishu, police said.

Al Shabaab has stepped up its campaign of bombings and gun assaults in Mogadishu in recent months ahead of parliamentary elections which are expected to take place within weeks.

Col. Abdiqadir Hussein, a police officer, told Reuters the explosion had occurred near the parliament building, while another police officer, Major Hussein Nur, said the car bomb hit a military vehicle at a junction checkpoint.

“2 soldiers died and 5 others were injured,” Nur said, adding police, military and security forces were on the scene when the attack occurred.

Al Shabaab, which once ruled much of Somalia, wants to topple the Western-backed government in Mogadishu and drive out African AMISOM peacekeepers made up of soldiers from Kenya, Djibouti, Uganda, Ethiopia and other African nations

The group’s radio station Andalus said a suicide car bomb had been driven by “a mujahid” into Sayidka junction “where a convoy of the apostate government security forces were passing.”

Sheikh Abdiasis Abu Musab, al Shabaab’s military operations spokesman told Reuters the group had killed 17 soldiers and injured more than 30 others in the attack.

The group usually gives far lower numbers of casualties on its side and much higher death tolls for the security forces.

Witnesses said security forces had sealed off the area and nearby roads were blocked following the bombing.

Much of Somalia has been in a state of lawlessness and chaos since the early 1990s following the toppling of military dictator Mohamed Siad Barre.

A central government backed by the west and AMISOM has tried to restore order and rebuild but it has struggled under relentless attacks by al Shabaab.

(Reporting by Abdi Sheikh and Feisal Omar; Writing by Elias Biryabarema; Editing by Alexander Smith)

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MOGADISHU (Reuters) – The Islamist group al Shabaab seized a town northwest of Somalia’s capital from government forces on Sunday, the latest small centre taken by the militant group trying to topple the country’s Western-backed government.

Al Shabaab, which once ruled much of Somalia, has been fighting for years to impose its strict interpretation of Islam on Somalia. African Union and Somali troops have driven it from major urban strongholds and ports, but they have often struggled to defend smaller, more remote areas from attacks.

“Many al Shabaab fighters attacked us this morning and after brief fighting we left the town for tactical reasons,” Somali army Major Hussein Edin told Reuters from the nearby town of Baidoa. One Somali soldier was killed, he said.

Goofgaduud lies about 250 km (160 miles) northwest of Mogadishu, the capital.

Al Shabaab’s military operations spokesman, Sheikh Abdiasis Abu Musab, confirmed the group had captured the settlement. He said seven Somali soldiers were killed.

Al Shabaab’s casualty figures and those announced by officials often differ.

In a separate incident, the website of state radio, radiomuqdisho.net, said on Sunday that the Somali security forces had rescued a Kenyan woman who had been kidnapped by pirates in 2015. They did not give details about the woman.

(Reporting by Abdi Sheikh and Feisal Omar; Writing by Edmund Blair; Editing by Larry King)

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• 

  Salem Solomon

  Salem Solomon is a journalist and web producer at Voice of America’s Africa Division, where she reports in English, Amharic and Tigrigna. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, Poynter.org, Reuters and The Tampa Bay Times. Salem researches trends in analytics and digital journalism, and her data-driven work has been featured in VOA’s special projectscollection.

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A suicide bomber connected to Al-Shabab has driven a vehicle loaded with explosives into an African Union Military Base in central Somalia.

According to a Somali security official, Tuesday’s attack in Beledweyne has been claimed by the Somali armed group Al-Shabab.

The suicide attack was said to have been targeted at the Djiboutian Military Base in western Beledweyne,”

A military offensive launched in 2014 by AU forces and the Somali Army pushed Al-Shabab out of major strategic centres.

Somalia has been embroiled in conflict and lawlessness since the early 1990s following the toppling of Mohamed Siad Barre.

Source: NTA

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By Abdiqani Hassan and Abdi Sheikh

MOGADISHU (Reuters) – At least seven people were killed in weekend fighting between soldiers from two semi-autonomous regions of Somalia, officials from both sides said on Sunday, sparking fears of wider conflict.

The clashes which broke out on Saturday pitted forces from Puntland with those of Galmudug, the latest flare-up over a disputed area straddling their border.

The two sides are fighting in the town of Galkayo, which is divided between clan militias loyal to the different regions.

Hirsi Yusuf Barre, the mayor of Galkayo south, accused soldiers from Puntland of launching attacks first on Saturday.

“We lost three soldiers and 11 others were injured. We burnt three vehicles belonging to Puntland,” he told Reuters on Sunday.

Major Mohamed Ibrahim, a military officer in Puntland, said four soldiers were killed on their side and seven others were injured.

“We have repulsed them,” he said.

Residents in the area said Galkayo was calm on Sunday but soldiers from both factions were seen reorganising themselves for more clashes.

Earlier this month, the United Nations said the conflict could worsen and clashes had already displaced around 50,000 people.

Somalia has been at civil war for 25 years and clashes between the clan-based militias who control much of the country are common. In the south, forces loyal to the weak U.N.-backed government are also battling Islamist insurgents.

(Writing by Aaron Maasho Editing by Ruth Pitchford)

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A group of sailors who were held hostage by Somali pirates for nearly five years survived in part by eating rats, one survivor has told the BBC.

Filipino sailor Arnel Balbero said they were also only given small amounts of water and felt like “the walking dead” by the end of their ordeal.

The 26 sailors were seized on board their ship in 2012 and were eventually taken to Somalia.

They were freed on Saturday, reportedly after a ransom was paid.

The sailors were from China, the Philippines, Cambodia, Indonesia, Vietnam and Taiwan.

Image copyrightEPA

Mr Balbero was among the crew of the FV Naham 3 when it was captured by Somali pirates south of the Seychelles. One crew member was killed during the capture, according to non-governmental organisation Oceans Beyond Piracy.

A year later, the ship sank and the crew were brought onshore in Somalia. Two sailors subsequently died of illnesses.

Mr Balbero told the BBC that the last four and a half years had left him and his compatriots “like walking dead”.

Asked how the pirates treated them, he said: “They give us small amount of water only… We eat rat. Yes, we cook it in the forest.”

“[We] just eat anything, anything. You feel hungry, you eat.”

He also spoke of their difficulties adjusting to life after their ordeal, saying: “I don’t know what is… outside of this world when this finish, so it’s very hard to start again.”

Image copyrightAP

The group are believed to be some of the last remaining captives held by Somali pirates, after a wave of hijackings in the mid-2000s.

Piracy off the coast of Somalia, usually for ransom, has reduced significantly in recent years, in part because of extensive international military patrols of the most vulnerable areas.

Separately a clip has emerged of the survivors, which appeared to have been taken in 2014 by the pirates amid negotiations as proof that the hostages were still alive.

The clip, released by a Taiwanese lawmaker who took part in the negotiations, shows the group of men looking thin and haggard and surrounded by masked gunmen.

It then cuts to a man identified by Taiwanese media as Shen Jui-chang, the Taiwanese chief engineer of the hijacked ship.

In the clip, Mr Shen says in Mandarin that the men were only given a litre of water a day to drink despite the heat. “There is no water, there is no food,” he said, adding that “every one of us has some kind of illness”.

“The pirates won’t get medicine for you, they say that they don’t have money to buy medicine. That’s how two young men have already died for nothing,” he says.

Taiwan’s foreign affairs ministry said the men were freed after a ransom was paid by the ship’s owner as well as groups contracted to negotiate with the pirates, Taiwanese media reported.

The ship was Omani-flagged but owned by a Taiwanese company.

• BBC

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DADAAB, KENYA/KISMAYO, SOMALIA —  Twenty-eight-year old Nurto Ahmed Abdullahi stands beside the dusty airstrip at Kenya’s Dadaab refugee camp, preparing to board a charter flight to Mogadishu.

She is one of tens of thousands who after years of seeking refuge in Kenya are going back to their native Somalia as part of a “voluntary repatriation” program backed by the United Nations and the Kenyan government. But Abdullahi and others say the process is hardly voluntary, and accuse Kenya of forcing refugees back to an unsafe country.

Kenya plans to shut the 25-year-old Dadaab refugee camp, which houses nearly 300,000 people, by the end of the year, citing the economic burden and concerns that the camp is a recruiting ground for al-Shabab militants.

The shutdown comes amid cutbacks in health services and food rations in Dadaab that have pushed some refugees who are dependent on aid into destitution.

Business people who once brought goods into the camp aren’t coming either, further reducing the supply of food.

“If someone is complaining about you, you can’t say, ‘I have to stay in his house,’ so you have to decide to leave his house. So Kenya is now going to close Dadaab, and we have to leave Dadaab,” says Abdullahi, who came to the camp in 2011 because of conflict in Mogadishu.

IN PICTURES: Life in Kenya’s Dadaab Refugee Camp

Life in Kenya’s Dadaab Refugee Camp

Meanwhile, those who have returned to Somalia say they’re worse off than they were in Dadaab. Now, many are pointing the finger at the U.N. and Kenya’s government for pushing refugees back to their homes before Somalia is ready to take them.

A preference for Kenya

Over 80 percent of Dadaab residents want to stay put, says Doctors Without Borders, including 48-year-old Fatuma Mahad Samatar, who came to the camp in 2011 from Gedo.

“I’m not ready to go back to Somalia,” says Samatar, who says she has been pleased with the free education for her children, free health care and good security in Dadaab.

Going to Somalia is particularly problematic for the many Dadaab residents born there since the camp opened in 1991, like Mohamed Abdullahi Jimale, 24. He’s never actually been to the war-torn country of his parents, who are both deceased, and has four young siblings to care for.

“I don’t feel like the decision was nice to somebody like me who was born in the camps. And I don’t feel like going. I want to stay here in Kenya. Even if we are forced, I want to die here, pretending to be a Kenyan,” he says.

For those who do sign up to return, the U.N. refugee agency, UNHCR, offers a return package, including cash. Thousands have opted to take what they can get before the end of November and hope for the best in Somalia.

But it appears that what they receive may not live up to what was promised.

Workers help refugees check-in for repatriation flight to Mogadishu, Dadaab, Kenya, September 21, 2016.

Empty promises

UNHCR Kenya head Raouf Mazou told VOA that each returnee receives $200 upon leaving Dadaab. But VOA saw returnees receiving only $150 each at the Dadaab airstrip. A bit more, about $30, is given for those with special needs, said a UNHRC worker at the airstrip.

There is also confusion about what awaits them in Somalia. Mazou said that returning refugees should receive health, education and other essential services in Somalia. Returnees tell a different story.

Hubi Abdillahi Aden fled Somalia’s war with her husband and newborn in 1991 for Dadaab, where she gave birth to six more children. The family returned to Somalia earlier this year.

Now in Kismayo, the family of nine lives in an overcrowded camp for displaced people on a trash-strewn beach. Their dwelling is a tiny hut of cardboard, a far cry from the house with curtains Aden beams about inhabiting in Dadaab.

“We were promised a lot of things,” Aden says. “There will be a house, and provide us with the basics. Now there’s no toilet, there’s no water, there’s no house, the promises that were made by the U.N. — education, the health, job creation, anything that would move our lives forward — there was nothing.”

Health workers say their clinics in Kismayo are overcrowded and there aren’t enough drugs to go around. Vouchers provided by the World Food Program are often not honored by local vendors. Without enough clean water in the camps, aid workers worry of cholera outbreaks in the rainy season.

Aden’s main concern is education for her seven children. She says she can’t afford education fees in Kismayo, and she says the schooling in Kismayo is at a far lower standard than it is in Kenya anyway.

“I would like to go back to Kenya to take them back to the school, but the situation does not allow me,” she says, lamenting she expects her children to grow up to be shoe shiners if things don’t improve. “I really, really regret [coming back to Somalia] so much.”

Kenya’s Dadaab refugee camp, September 19, 2016. (Jill Craig/VOA)

Overwhelmed

The problem is that war-torn Kismayo can’t accommodate the thousands of new arrivals. The city’s residents are still recovering from the war, while drought and active conflict in the hinterlands have forced some 40,000 displaced Somalis into camps in town in recent years.

“People who live in Kismayo were already vulnerable,” says Adam Ibrahim Aw Hirsi, the Jubaland region justice minister who oversees the returnee program. “So you have vulnerable people, on top of IDPs who are more vulnerable, on top of them over 16,000 and counting new refugees from Kenya.”

Abdi Adan Salat, who runs the American Refugee Committee’s aid operations in Kismayo, including health, education and jobs programs, says relief organizations are overwhelmed.

“The projects now we have in Kismayo are not enough to meet the needs to the returnees, the IDPs and the host community, so there is a huge gap,” Salat says. “Intervention from respective donors is highly required to avoid deterioration of the situation.”

UNHCR Somalia spokesperson Julien Olivier acknowledges there aren’t enough health and education services in Kismayo, because UNHCR’s main focus has been getting people out of Dadaab.

“We have to be better. We have to be more services-oriented to the population,” Olivier says, noting there have been indications that donors will support more reintegration programs.

Lawlessness and al-Shabab

Another problem is that much of Somalia remains unsafe. Though Kismayo is relatively calm, there is fighting in other parts of Jubaland where some returnees have gone.

Abdullahi Mohamed Aden, 47, went back to Jubaland in May but returned to Dadaab soon afterward because of violence.

“The place we went, there was no security, no health, no education, no water. It was a tough place,” he told VOA in Dadaab. “At night, armed men would come to you, they will tell you to give them what you have. We had to leave.”

While frustration mounts at the lack of services in Kismayo, others are pointing the finger at Kenya, saying authorities there were too quick to close Dadaab.

“To the Kenyan government, to be honest, we are thankful. We are requesting, as your brothers and your neighbors, that you have taken care of us for over 20 years, you don’t end an old relationship in a shameful way,” says Ahmed Mohamud Abukar, the chairman of the returnees in Kismayo.

“Since you have taken care of these people for almost 30 years, please take care of them the way you did before, until our government has put its feet on the ground.”

For those who’ve already returned to Somalia, there is little recourse. Back in Dadaab, there is only uncertainty. Kenya’s government has stood by its wish to see Somali refugees go home, meaning that come November 30, the future of Dadaab residents is in limbo.

– VOA

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MOGADISHU (Reuters) – A suicide attacker rammed a bomb-laden car into a police station in the Somali town of Afgoye on Tuesday, killing at least four police officers, and militants then stormed the area, local authorities said.

“Many militants have entered the town. Heavy fighting is taking place,” police major Nur Osman told Reuters. Afgoye is about 30 kilometres southwest of the capital Mogadishu.

The al Shabaab militant group, which has been carrying out a series of deadly bombings throughout Somalia, claimed responsibility for the attack. The group is fighting to topple the Western-backed government in Mogadishu.

“Now most of the town is under our control,” Sheikh Abdiasis Abu Musab, al Shabaab’s military operations spokesman, told Reuters.

(Reporting by Abdi Sheikh; Writing by Aaron Maasho; Editing by Catherine Evans)

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MOGADISHU (Reuters) – Somali Islamist group al Shabaab bombed a restaurant frequented by members of the security forces in Mogadishu on Saturday, killing at least three people, officials and the group said.

Police said a suicide car bomb rammed the Blue Sky restaurant in the capital, which is located near a detention centre, known as Jilaow, where militants are often held in underground cells.

Al Shabaab frequently launches attacks in Mogadishu in its bid to topple the Western-backed government.

Abdifatah Omar, a spokesman for Mogadishu’s local government, said at the scene that three people had been confirmed dead so far and four others were injured.

“We targeted the security forces and officers of the underground Jilaow cell who were there,” Sheikh Abdiasis Abu Musab, al Shabaab’s military operations spokesman, told Reuters, adding that at least 10 people were killed.

He did not say whether a suicide car bomb was used in the attack, although the group often uses such tactics.

Casualty figures given by al Shabaab and officials often differ.

(Reporting by Abdi Sheikh, Abdirahman Hussein and Feisal Omar; Writing by Edmund Blair; Editing by Robin Pomeroy and Alexander Smith)

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By Abdi Sheikh

MOGADISHU (Reuters) – An air strike in northern Somalia left as many as 22 soldiers dead overnight, local officials said on Wednesday, and one region said the United States had been duped into attacking its troops.

Galmudug’s Security Minister Osman Issa said 22 of his region’s soldiers had been killed in the strike, adding that the rival neighbouring region of Puntland had requested it on the pretext that the men were al Shabaab Islamist militants.

“Puntland misinformed the United States and thus our forces were bombed,” he told Reuters.

A U.S. Defense Department official told Reuters Washington had conducted “a self-defense air strike” against al Shabaab.

“The air strike was called in after Somali troops faced fire from militants,” the official said. No evidence had been seen that the attack killed civilians or anyone other than al Shabaab militants, the official added.

A Puntland police officer said the attack had killed “more than a dozen” members of al Shabaab, which is waging an insurgency against Somalia’s Western-backed government and regional authorities.

Galmudug and Puntland regions have often clashed over territory.

The United States has launched many air strikes in Somalia, usually against al Shabaab.

Al Shabaab denied that it had any fighters in the area of the latest incident. “We neither have a base nor forces in Galkayo area,” Sheikh Abdiasis Abu Musab, al Shabaab’s military operations spokesman, told Reuters.

Protesters in Galmudug’s capital Galkayo burned U.S. flags and images of President Barack Obama in protest, witnesses said. Shops closed because of the demonstrations.

Somalia is trying to rebuild after two decades of war. The conflict that began in 1991 left the Horn of Africa nation riven by clan rivalries and struggling with an Islamist insurgency. Rival regions still sometimes take up arms against each other.

(Additional reporting by Idrees Ali in Washington D.C.; Writing by Katharine Houreld; Editing by Edmund Blair and Andrew Roche)

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MOGADISHU 28 Sep (Reuters) – Gunmen killed a Somali radio journalist in the capital Mogadishu on Tuesday, an official told Reuters.

Killings of journalists in Somalia are not uncommon and are mostly blamed on al Shabaab, the Islamist militant group fighting to topple the country’s Western backed government and rule the country according to sharia law.

“Unidentified men armed with pistols killed our colleague this evening,” Radio Shabelle’s station manager, Abukar Sheikh, told Reuters by phone about Abdiasis Ali Haji.

Police Major Mohamed Nur told Reuters he was killed by two men with pistols who fled before officers reached the scene.

A statement by the National Union of Somali Journalists condemned the killing and asked the Somali government to urgently investigate the incident and punish the perpetrators.

In June suspected al Shabaab gunmen shot and killed a female journalist, Sagal Salad, working for state-run Radio Mogadishu.

Late last year, another female reporter who also worked for Radio Mogadishu was killed in a car blast. Two men convicted of the killing were executed in April.

Somalia has been convulsed by instability, violence and lawlessness since early 1990s following the toppling of military dictator Mohamed Siad Barre.

Propped up by an African Union mandated peacekeeping force, Somalia’s military and central government have strengthened their grip on the country but a relentless campaign of bombings and gun assaults by al Shabaab persists.

(Reporting by Abdi Sheikh and Feisal Omar; Writing by Elias Biryabarema; Editing by Alison Williams)

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By Feisal Omar and Abdi Sheikh

MOGADISHU (Reuters) – A Somali general and at least seven of his bodyguards were killed on Sunday when their vehicle was rammed by a car bomb driven by an al Shabaab suicide attacker in the capital, police and the Islamist group said.

Al Shabaab, which frequently launches attacks on officials in Mogadishu, staged this attack in the build-up to a vote for a new parliament and president, part of efforts to rebuild a nation that has been shattered by two decades of war and chaos.

“Military General Mohamed Roble Jimale and at least seven of his bodyguards died,” police colonel Abdikadir Farah told Reuters. “The suicide car bomb hit the car they were in. May God rest their souls.”

The general was known by the name Goobaanle. Somalis often have a nickname that is as commonly used as their proper name.

Somalia’s Andalus radio, which is linked to al Shabaab, said “a mujahid (fighter) was martyred as his suicide car bomb killed General Goobaanle.” It said further details would follow later.

Al Shabaab, which once ruled much of Somalia, wants to topple the Western-backed government of President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud, who is seeking re-election in the upcoming vote.

Voting for the 275-seat parliament is scheduled to start on Sept. 25 and end on Oct. 10, with new lawmakers sworn in on Oct. 30. Those lawmakers will, in turn, pick a president on Oct. 30.

Due to security concerns, including the continuing al Shabaab insurgency, voting will not be based on one-person-one-vote but instead about 14,000 people representing federal states across the nation will choose members of the legislative assembly.

That is a fraction of Somalia’s 11 million people, but is more than the 135 elders who picked the outgoing parliament in 2012.

(Writing by Edmund Blair; Editing by Tom Heneghan)

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By Abdi Sheikh

MOGADISHU (Reuters) – Somalia hosted regional African heads of state on Tuesday for a summit that was the first of its kind in the Somali capital since the Horn of Africa nation plunged into conflict in 1991.

Streets were shut down to traffic in Mogadishu, which regularly faces attacks from the Islamist al Shabaab militants, for the one-day meeting of IGAD, a grouping that includes Kenya, Ethiopia, Uganda, Djibouti, Sudan, Uganda and Somalia.

The regional leaders were due to discuss Somalia’s upcoming vote for a new parliament and president, as well the situation in South Sudan, where fighting in July has further destabilised the five-year-old nation.

The presidents of Kenya and Djibouti, and the prime minister of Ethiopia, were in Mogadishu for the summit, officials said. Uganda was represented by a minister at the meeting of IGAD, or the Intergovernmental Authority on Development.

“It symbolises the reconstruction of Somalia and Somalia coming back to the (family of) nations,” Foreign Minister Abdusalam Omer told Reuters as heads of state flew in. “It signifies that we are defeating international terrorism.”

Somalia has hosted visits of individual heads of state. But Omer said this was the first summit gathering for about four decades, since the rule of President Siad Barre, whose toppling in 1991 was followed by two decades of conflict.

Many senior visitors to Mogadishu stay in the airport area, a compound surrounded by high blast walls with barbed wire and patrolled by the African Union AMISOM force. Tuesday’s summit was being held just outside the perimeter at a nearby hotel.

“The presence of the heads of state in Somalia is a clear dividend of returning stability in the country,” AMISOM said in a statement.

Ordinary Somalis were forced to walk around the capital as traffic was blocked from many streets. Al Shabaab has often used vehicles packed with explosives to launch attacks on sites in Mogadishu, blowing up security posts so fighters can storm in.

Mogadishu still bears the scars of war, with many buildings little more than bombed out shells. But there has been a construction boom in recent years, that has seen new buildings erected, often financed by Somalis returning from abroad.

Al Shabaab, which once ruled most of Somalia, has been waging an insurgency to topple the Western-backed government of President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud, who seeks re-election later this year.

Security concerns mean that only a fraction of Somalia’s 11 million people will vote in the election, with 14,000 people gathered from the federal states choosing the 275 members of parliament, before the lawmakers then pick the president.

But that is still an improvement on the 135 elders who chose parliament in 2012, and which in turn picked Mohamud.

(Writing and additional reporting by Edmund Blair; Editing by Alison Williams)

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By Phil Stewart

LONDON (Reuters) – The U.S. military conducted two strikes in southern Somalia early this week that killed four al Qaeda-linked al Shabaab militants involved in attacks on Somali government troops, a U.S. military spokeswoman said on Wednesday.

The U.S. military has in the past used drones to target al Shabaab’s senior leaders. The Pentagon said in June it carried out a strike in late May against Abdullahi Haji Da’ud, one of al Shabaab’s senior military planners and served as a principal coordinator of attacks in Somalia, Kenya, and Uganda.

The latest strikes took place in Torotorow in Lower Shabelle region, on Monday.

“During a Somali-led counter-terrorism operation, a large group of armed al Shabaab fighters attacked the force, threatening the safety and security of the forces in the area,” Captain Jennifer Dyrcz, a U.S. Africa Command spokeswoman, said. “In response, the U.S. conducted two self-defence strikes… killing four al Shabaab militants.”

Al Shabaab was pushed out of Mogadishu by African Union peacekeeping forces in 2011 but has remained a potent antagonist in Somalia, launching frequent attacks aimed at overthrowing the Western-backed government.

(Additional reporting by Feisal Omar in Mogadishu; Writing by George Obulutsa; editing by Ralph Boulton)

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GENEVA —  A new United Nations report warns restrictions on freedom of expression threaten Somalia’s political transition to democracy after decades of conflict and violence.

Produced jointly by the U.N. Assistance Mission in Somalia and the Office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, the report documents widespread violations in Somalia against journalists, human rights defenders and political leaders, including numerous killings, arbitrary arrests and detention, intimidation and closure of critical media outlets.

Cecile Pouilly is spokeswoman for the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights. She tells VOA these targeted violations are aimed at squelching freedom of expression and critical opinion.

Under attack

She says al-Shabab rebels prohibit all journalists from operating in areas under its control and target media workers across the country. But, she says federal and state security forces pose the greatest threat to media workers and political activists.

“It is a key concern that remain in Somalia that journalists cannot operate more freely,” she said. “Over the last six months there is a new trend that seems to appear in a couple of states in Somalia, which is that journalists are being harassed in the streets and physically and verbally abused by unidentified men. So, we really see that this is a danger for journalists, for freedom of expression and for democracy at large.”

Over the past four years, the report notes 30 journalists and 18 parliamentarians have been killed in Somalia. It also documents 120 cases of arbitrary arrest and detention of media workers between January 2014 and July 2016.

Weak judiciary

Pouilly says such crimes are rarely punished because Somalia’s judiciary is very weak.

“One of the key concerns is about the independence of the justice system because it is still very much guided by clan-based politics. It also suffers from corruption,” she said. “There is very limited oversight. And, as a result, there is very limited accountability for all violations of freedom of expression.”

Pouilly says clan elders also are the main obstacle to women’s participation in political and public life.

She says the Somali government has seen the report and is taking its findings and recommendations seriously.

Pouilly says the U.N. is encouraged by this response and is urging the authorities to take quick action to ensure freedom of expression and to make Somalia a truly participatory democracy.

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MOGADISHU (Reuters) – A car bomb claimed by al Shabaab Islamist militants killed five soldiers outside the president’s palace in the Somali capital of Mogadishu and badly damaged two nearby hotels, police said.

Reuters witnesses said gunfire could be heard after the explosion and a huge cloud of smoke could be seen above the president’s palace, outside which were the remnants of the car and splattered blood.

“A suicide car bomb exploded outside the presidential palace. So far two hotels opposite the palace are partially destroyed,” police officer Major Mohamed Ali told Reuters by phone.

Al Qaeda-linked al Shabaab has claimed responsibility for several recent explosions in Mogadishu, including a car bomb and gun attack last week at a popular beach restaurant in the capital that killed 10 people.

“So far we know five government soldiers died in the blast. It exploded outside the SYL hotel which is also just at the checkpoint outside the palace. We believe the target was SYL which is frequented by officials. The death toll may rise,” police officer Colonel Abdikadir Hussein told Reuters.

Al Shabaab’s Radio Andaluz said that the group was behind the attack.

In a separate incident, al Shabaab fighters attacked military bases housing government and African Union troops south west of the capital Mogadishu late on Monday, police and the group said on Tuesday.

Military officer Major Bile Farah said a soldier and two al Shabaab fighters were killed in the attack in K-50 and Muri in Lower Shabelle region,

Al Shabaab’s military operations spokesman, Abdiasis Abu Musab, said the group’s fighters had killed 10 soldiers and commandeered a vehicle from the Somali government soldiers.

The militants were pushed out of Mogadishu by the African Union peacekeeping force AMISOM in 2011 but have remained a serious threat, launching frequent attacks aimed at overthrowing the government.

Seeking to impose its own harsh form of Islam, al Shabaab has also launched attacks in Kenya and Uganda which have contributed troops to the 22,000-strong AMISOM force.

(Reporting by Abdi Sheikh and Feisal Omar; Writing by George Obulutsa)

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By Abdi Sheikh and Feisal Omar

MOGADISHU (Reuters) – Al Shabaab militants attacked a beach restaurant in the capital Mogadishu on Thursday, with gunmen raiding the building after setting off a car bomb, police and the insurgent group said.

Sporadic shooting could be heard as night fell, Reuters witnesses said.

It was not clear how many casualties there might be.

“A car bomb exploded at Banadir beach restaurant at Lido beach and there is exchange of gunfire. We have no other details so far,” police officer Major Ahmed Ibrahim told Reuters.

Al Qaeda-linked al Shabaab’s military operation spokesman Abdiasis Abu Musab said the group was responsible for the attack.

“We attacked the Banadir beach restaurant and now our fighters are fighting inside it,” he told Reuters.

Al Shabaab, has carried out a series of deadly attacks in Somalia to try to topple the Western-backed government.

In January, its militants stormed another restaurant on Lido beach, killing 17 people.

On Sunday, more than 20 people were killed when its suicide bombers detonated two car bombs at a local government headquarters in Somalia’s semi-autonomous Puntland region.

On Thursday, Reuters witnesses near the scene of the beach attack said the restaurant had been sealed off by security officers and that the attackers had lobbed grenades at the officers and fired at them.

They said they had also seen two bodies lying on the ground.

Internal Security Minister Abdirizak Omar Mohamed said on his Twitter account: “Warning: People near the blast scene should stay in the hotels and in their houses in which they are inside. Cars should not enter Lido beach area.”

Al Shabaab was pushed out of Mogadishu by the African Union peacekeeping force AMISOM in 2011 but has remained a potent threat in Somalia, launching frequent attacks aimed at overthrowing the Western-backed government.

In a separate incident in southern Somalia, a roadside bomb believed to have been planted by al Shabaab militants wounded at three people in Baardheere town in Gedo region, Colonel Hussein Nur, a police officer in the town, told Reuters by phone.

(Additional reporting by Abdirahman Hussein; Writing by George Obulutsa; Editing by Louise Ireland)

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MOGADISHU (Reuters) – A suicide car bomb went off at the local government headquarters in Somalia’s Galkayo town in the semi-autonomous Puntland region on Sunday, police said, and residents said two blasts had struck the area.

“The situation is a mess,” said Ahmed Farah, a police officer, who did not have details of any casualties.

Witnesses and residents said they heard two loud blasts in quick succession followed by heavy gunfire.

“There were two huge bombs. The first one was a truck bomb, followed a minute or so (later) by another car bomb. My brother was injured at the scene,” Halima Ismail, a local resident, told Reuters.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility but the al Shabaab militant group has been carrying out a series of deadly attacks in Somalia.

(Reporting by Abdiqani Hassan and Abdi Sheikh; Writing by Duncan Miriri; Editing by Dominic Evans)

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Militants set off two car bombs outside a police base in Somalia’s capital before gunmen stormed inside on Sunday, leaving at least 10 people dead, police said.

Islamist group al Shabaab claimed responsibility for the assault on the headquarters of Somalia’s Criminal Investigation Department (CID) in Mogadishu.

It was the second major operation in the city this week by the group which has kept up a guerilla war on the Western-backed government in the face of U.S. drone strikes and African peacekeeping forces.

Heavy gunfire rang out inside for about half an hour after the first blast, said witnesses.

The bodies of four civilians lay in the street near the compound which was partially destroyed. A kiosk close to the wall caught fire.

“At least 10 people including four militants, five civilians and a soldier died in today’s attack,” Hussein Ali, a police officer, told Reuters.

Another 15 people were injured, some seriously, he added.

Al Shabaab’s military operations spokesman, Abdiasis Abu Musab, said one of its suicide bombers had started the attack by ramming a car bomb into the building’s gate.

In al Shabaab’s first attack this week, 13 people were killed when two car bombs went off at the gate of the African Union’s main AMISOM peacekeeping base on Tuesday.

Security analysts have warned that the group could step up its attacks, taking advantage of the distraction caused by campaigning for a presidential election due in August.

Al Shabaab, seeking to impose its harsh form of Islam on the Horn of Africa nation, has also launched attacks in Kenya and Uganda which have contributed troops to the 22,000-strong AMISOM force.

Somalia plunged into anarchy in the early 1990s following the toppling of military dictator Mohamed Siad Barre.

(Reporting by Abdi Sheikh and Feisal Omar; Writing by Duncan Miriri; Editing by Andrew Heavens)

Tweets on the this attack

MORE PHOTOS of the twin VBIED bombing outside CID Hq #Mogadishu #Somalia #Alshabaab claims responsibility pic.twitter.com/2pIphOvgri

— Yassin Juma (@Yassinjuma) July 31, 2016

Another bomb attack today in #Mogadishu. Heavy bomb and attack ongoing at the CID HQ. pic.twitter.com/dbOcaLnR8p

— M.Mubarak (@somalianalyst) July 31, 2016

MORE PHOTOS of the twin VBIED bombing outside CID Hq #Mogadishu #Somalia #Alshabaab claims responsibility pic.twitter.com/2pIphOvgri

— Yassin Juma (@Yassinjuma) July 31, 2016

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[Aljazeera] Somalis born in the Dadaab refugee camp say they are distraught at Kenya’s plans to forcibly repatriate them.

When war broke out in Somalia, Deck’s parents were among the first to arrive at Dadaab in 1991. “My parents have told me that I was just one year old when we came. But they haven’t even told me the name of the village we came from in Somalia,” Deck says.

At the camp, his family lived in poverty and depended on food rations to survive. His mother struggled to make their lives better by selling firewood. She later opened a small clothes shop at the camp’s market. Life got better and Deck and his siblings attended school. For Deck, the camp has always been his home, a peaceful place from which he has never ventured.

Upon finishing primary school in 2008, he started working in the family business. He now spends his days at his family’s shop, selling men’s shirts, trousers and shoes.

The shop his mother started through the proceeds from selling firewood has grown and can now comfortably provide for their family. It now has stock worth approximately $850, he estimates.

But Deck’s life may soon change if Kenya makes good on its plan to repatriate the Somali refugees from Dadaab. Joseph Nkaisserry, Kenya’s cabinet secretary for interior, first made the announcement in May. He said the camp was a threat to security and had been used to plan attacks within the country. The government expects to close it by November.

Mwenda Njoka, the Ministry of Interior spokesman, told Al Jazeera that the first group of 15,000 refugees would be taken to various places in Somalia on July 1. “We are currently conducting a workshop for all officials from different agencies which will be involved in the repatriation. We are also working closely with the UNHCR in planning the repatriation,” said Mwenda.

‘I am happy here’

Dadaab refugee camp has 326,611 Somali refugees (75,169 households) in its five camps – Ifo, Ifo 2, Hagadera, Dagahaley and Kambioos. Ifo camp, where Deck lives is home to 76,121 refugees. Ifo is the oldest camp in Dadaab and was opened in1991, when civil war broke out in Somalia.

Deck has never returned to Somalia – he hasn’t even left the camp – and he is reluctant to now. “I am happy here, security is good and business is good too. But repatriation is going to end all this and force us to a place where there is war,” he says.

Hussein Abdullahi, 27, is a tailor at Ifo. He is deaf, as are three of his friends, two of whom are teachers and one a barber. They worry that because they are unable to hear, repatriation will be even more dangerous for them. “If a bomb or gunshots occur, we are unaware and may end up losing our lives,” Hussein reflects.

He arrived in the camp in 1992, when he was three years old and has never left. He was educated at the camp and can read and write well, something he says may not have been possible in Somalia due to war and the poor educational system. He now plies his trade at Ifo market, where he sews trousers and shirts for other residents of the camp.

Because of the uncertainty about the future of the camp, he opted not to pay his shop’s rent this month, working instead from the verandah of a closed shop. This way, he says, he’ll be able to save a little money in case he’s repatriated soon.

“If we could hear, if we were not deaf, we could have gone back without hesitation,” Hussein says. “At least then we could run away if tragedies occur.”

One of his friends, Hussein Aden Ali, 27, is a barber, but he is now out of work since his employer shut his barber shop after hearing about the repatriations. “Many people are closing their shops and selling their goods out in the open – some at throw-away prices – in anticipation for the repatriation,” Deck says.

‘I would rather earn less here and be safe’

At Hagadera camp, about 5km from Ifo camp, some have voluntarily left for Somalia, but 22-year-old Mohamed Ousman says he is not yet ready. His family left Buale in Middle Juba 21 years ago. Some of his former neighbours in the camp returned there last December.

“When we speak on the phone they tell me that right now there is peace but al-Shabaab fighters are in the region. So if we are forced to go, we never know when the operation will be at Buale and that will put us at risk. I don’t want that,” Mohamed says.

Mohamed finished secondary school at Hagadera in 2013 and when he was unable to get a scholarship to study medicine – his dream career – he settled for teaching. In 2015, he started teaching maths and English to class five and six pupils at a Lutheran World Foundation-funded school at Hagadera. He says he would love to go back to a peaceful Somalia some day and be assured of a job.

At the school where Mohamed teaches, some of the children have already left for Somalia. He fears they may not have access to an education there.

According to SAFE, the Somali and American Fund for Education, decades of civil war have led to a collapse of the education system in Somalia. It says that 90 percent of all schools were destroyed during or after war. SAFE estimates that 80 percent of school-age children are not enrolled in school.

The Un refugee agency, UNHCR, has been repatriating refugees from Dadaab who want to go back to Somalia. So far, it has repatriated 16,000 over the course of three years. David Mwancha, a UNHCR spokesman, said that once in Somalia, the refugees are provided with food and the agency also ensures that the children get enrolled into school.

Mohamed says that some of his friends who have returned to Somalia tell him that there are government jobs that pay better than at the camp. Since 2012, the Somali government has embarked on an education sector strategic plan with funding from the Global Partnership for Education. But Mohamed isn’t convinced.

“That is tempting, but I would rather earn less here and be safe in a peaceful place than earn more and risk my life,” he says.

Source: Al Jazeera

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