The UK Government has announced a further £5 million in funding for the United Nations Support Office in Somalia (UNSOS) Trust Fund to support Somalia’s Security Forces (SSF). The new funding was announced during a meeting between Somalia’s National Security Advisor, Hussein Sheikh Ali, and the UK’s Deputy National Security Adviser for International Affairs, Dame...
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11 Somali soldiers killed as AU forces start second round of troop drawdown
Eleven Somali government soldiers were killed and three others injured in a roadside explosion Monday in the southwestern Gedo region, officials said, as the African Union peacekeeping force began a second round of troop withdrawals. The explosion targeted a convoy of military vehicles between the towns of Luuq and Doolow, deputy governor of security and...
Somali Ethiopian refugees in Bosaso unhappy to lose education support for their children
Mohamed Haybe Hassan is worried about his five children who were forced to drop out of Ugas Yasin School in Bosaso when support for their tuition ended. Four of the children were set to join secondary school. The school serves 3,000 students from Somali Ethiopian families living in Washinton camp in Bosaso. It was supported...
UN urged to renew rights experts’ term in Ethiopia
Amnesty International has urged the UN to renew the mandate of a team of human rights experts on Ethiopia, which is due to expire at the end of the year, following the release of its most recent report. International Commission of Human Rights Experts on Ethiopia (ICHREE) was set up by the UN Human Rights...
Eight dead as Kenyan military helicopter crashes near Somalia border
A military helicopter crash in Kenya near the border with Somalia has killed at least eight people, officials said Tuesday. It was not immediately clear what caused the crash in the county of Lamu in coastal Kenya. Kenyan defense forces operate in the area to help deter the al-Qaida-linked al-Shabab group, based across the border...
Climate change impeding fight against AIDS, TB and malaria
LONDON: Climate change and conflict are hitting efforts to tackle three of the world’s deadliest infectious diseases, the head of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria has warned. International initiatives to fight the diseases have largely recovered after being badly affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, according to the Fund’s 2023 results report...
Exclusive: UN probes pay-for-aid scam in Somalia
A network of Somali landowners, clan leaders, police, and other local authorities have systematically enforced a coercive system of taxes on U.S.-funded aid recipients displaced by drought and conflict, threatening to arrest, beat, or deny life-saving assistance to those who refuse to pay up, according to an independent review commissioned by the United Nations. The revelation,...
Italian PM warns migration an issue for all of Europe on Lampedusa visit
Italy’s prime minister has said that European countries must work together “to stop departures [from Africa]” and swiftly deport those turned down for asylum, who she said “threaten the future of Europe”, after thousands of people seeking refuge arrived on Lampedusa in the last week. Giorgia Meloni toured the tiny Sicilian island, which for years...
Morocco rejects French foreign minister’s comments that Macron will visit
Morocco rejected on Saturday remarks by French Foreign Minister Catherina Colonna who siad President Emmanuel Macron will visit Morocco. A government official said Macron has neither an agenda nor a planned visit to Morocco, according to the Moroccan official news agency, MAP. “I am surprised that the French foreign minister has taken such a unilateral...
4 killed in roadside blast in Kenyan border region
At least four people were killed and eight others wounded in a roadside blast on Saturday evening in Mandera County near the Kenya-Somalia border, police said on Sunday. A minibus that was traveling from Mandera to neighboring Wajir County was hit by a bomb set by suspected al-Shabab terrorists, according to a police report on...