William Ruto, the Deputy Prime Minister of Kenya and Special Envoy of Mr. Kenyatta to Mr. Jonathan, delivered the message at the State House, Abuja on Friday.

He said, “Nigeria plays a leadership role in Africa and Kenya needs you to join other leaders for a framework to help resolve the Somali problem.’’

Mr. Kenyatta said that Mr. Jonathan’s personal intervention in the Somali problem would help greatly. He also spoke on improving relations through extending Kenya Airways flight to Abuja as well as Kenya’s commitment to enhancing intra-African trade.

Responding, Mr. Jonathan said that Africa needed to find a collective solution to the problem in Somalia, suggesting a meeting of leaders on the sidelines of the AU 50th Anniversary Summit, scheduled for next week.

He said that Nigeria was concerned about the activities of terrorists in Somalia and other places in Africa and the attendant negative effects on peace and development on the continent.

“I have just declared a state of emergency in three states in our country to check the havoc of terrorists. So, I can appreciate the issues confronting Somalia and Kenya.’’

On the bilateral level, Jonathan said that Nigeria and Kenya had a lot to gain from stronger mutual relations.

He assured the envoy of necessary cooperation in that regard.

Source: Premium Times

Mana jirto qaab ay ugu nabad gali karaan inkastoo dowlada Federaalka ay balan qaaday in ay ka hortagto dambiilayaasha caadaystay in ay kufsadaan haweenka danyarta ah ee ku dhibaataysan xeryahaasi.

Warbixin dhowaan ka soo baxday Q/midoobay ayaana lagu sheegay in boqolkiiba 70 maleeshiyada wax kufsata ay xiran yihiin dareeska Ciidamada Dowlada Federaalka Soomaaliya hase ahaatee dareeska Ciidamada ayaa la ogyahay in uu iib ahaan u yaallo suuqyada Muqdisho Qofkii rabana uu iibsan karo sidaas darteed aanan Ciidamada Dowlada lagu wada eedeyn karin.

Waxaa jira Hay,ado Maxali ah oo isku dayaya in ay wax un ka caawiyaan haweenka iyo gabdhaha lagu xadgudbay, taasoo ay u dheer tahay in ay wax ka faham siiyaan qaabka ay ula xiriiri karaan hay,adaha ka caawin kara dhibaatada uu ku reebay Kufsiga.

Magaalada Muqdisho ayaa ka nabdoon sidii ay ahaan jirtay labo ilaa saddex sano ka hor hase ahaatee waxaa wali ka dhamaan la, dhibaatada ma hartada ah ee lagula kacayo haweenka taagta daran.

Dowlada Soomaaliya iyo gaar ahaan Maamulka Gobolka Banaadir ayaa loo arkaan in ay yihiin hay,adaha ugu horeeya ee Masuuliyada gaarka ah ay ka saaran tahay sidii ay ugu hortagi lahaayeen xadgudubyada noocaas ah ee loola bareero bulshada kuweeda ugu liida

Halkaan Ka Daawo Barnaamij uu ka smaeeyay TV CNN International

Fogaan Arag News

Although Ahmed Madobe, leader of powerful Ras Kamboni militia, fought against the Al Qaeda-linked militants that tried to seize control of the country, he is not viewed favourably by the central government.

Hours after the constitutional assembly in the volatileJubaland region elected Madobe president, a rival warlord who is widely seen to be backed by Mogadishu, Barre Hirale, declared himself to be the president.

Madobe and Hirale are backed by rival clans competing for control of the strategically important port city of Kismayu.

“There is a risk that Somalia will be split along clan lines,” said one Western diplomat, who expressed concern that the Al Qaeda-linked Al Shabaab may benefit from any clashes between rival militias.

“As we get closer to building a federal state in Somalia, we actually risk it disintegrating,” the diplomat said.

Madobe was a former governor of Kismayu during an administration that was routed by Ethiopian forces sent into Somalia between 2006-2009 with tacit U.S. backing.

His Ras Kamboni militia has fought alongside Kenyan troops over the past year, flushing al Shabaab out of their strongholds in the south.

Ras Kamboni has been unwilling to cede to the central government control over Kismayu where rival warlords fight to be able to tax charcoal exports to Gulf states and levy duty on imported contraband, including weapons, sugar and electronics.

“These two ‘ presidents’ of Jubaland are both warlords who are actually proxies for Kenya and Somalia. We could be on a precipice of clan warfare, if not regional conflict,” said a regional intelligence source.

The government did not comment on the election but Abdirahman Mohamud Farole, president of Puntland, another semi-autonomous region which has a fractious relationship with Mogadishu, congratulated Madobe on his election.

Source: Reuters

Western donor countries have been unwilling to deploy soldiers inside the Horn of Africa state, but instead fund the African Union’s Amisom peacekeeping troops, which have driven Islamist al Shabaab rebels out of Mogadishu and many other strongholds in central and southern Somalia.

The success of Amisom, made up mostly of Ugandan, Burundian and Kenyan soldiers, has encouraged Western countries to look beyond the scars left by the deaths of U.S. and U.N. soldiers during Somalia’s violent disintegration into civil war in the early 1990s, and increase their engagement.

The EU’s training mission, separate from Amisom, has trained some 3,000 Somali soldiers and officers in Uganda since 2010.

Michele Cervone d’Urso, the EU envoy, said having up to 80 European military staff in Mogadishu was a “game changer”.

The EU military experts will focus on providing strategic advice to Somali Defence Ministry staff while also teaching Somali trainers, who will then train their own forces.

“We can have far more impact that way,” d’Urso told Reuters inside Mogadishu’s heavily guarded airport, where Britain is due to open an embassy for the first time in nearly two decades.

“Having (the training mission) here shows that international European engagement inside Somalia can happen. Gone are the days where Mogadishu was one of the diplomatic black holes.”

Somali President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud said establishing security after 20 years of conflict was “priority number one, two and three” for his administration.

However, the bulk of Somalia’s armed forces are poorly trained and badly armed, and their ranks are often infiltrated by al Shabaab, which is allied to al Qaeda. They are also seen as corrupt, and serious human rights allegations have been levelled at them, including rapes of women in refugee camps.

“There is no doubt that these (EU-trained) troops are accountable, inclusive, will respect the chain of command and, above all, will respect the human rights of the Somali citizens,” Hassan told a delegation of European ambassadors in Mogadishu.

Source: Reuters

The father of an 11-year-old girl who died when she was hit by a lorry after getting off the school bus today spoke of his agonising decision to turn her life support machine off.

The UN defines an integrated mission as one in which there is a shared vision among all the UN actors at country level.

“This strategic objective is the result of a deliberate effort by all elements of the UN system to achieve a shared understanding of the mandates and functions of the various elements of the UN presence at country level and to use this understanding to maximize UN effectiveness, efficiency, and impact in all aspects of its work,” say the Integrated Mission Planning Guidelines endorsed in 2006 by the Secretary-General.

According to the resolution, the mission is intended to help Somalia build on the political gains made over the past year; assist the country to develop a federal system of government; review its constitution and hold a constitutional referendum; and facilitate preparations for presidential and parliamentary elections in 2016.

In addition, UNSOM will “promote respect for human rights and women’s empowerment, promote child protection, prevent conflict-related sexual and gender-based violence, and strengthen justice institutions.”

UN agencies working in Somalia are expected to move there. Many are currently based in Nairobi, the Kenyan capital.

In this briefing, IRIN looks at what an integrated approach means for Somalia.

What is the political, humanitarian situation in Somalia?

Somalia has recently made progress towards stability. In 2012, the country set up a functioning federal government under the leadership of President Sheikh Hassan Mohamud, the first such administration since 1990.

However, there continue to be huge political and humanitarian challenges. Insurgents, who still control parts of the country, continue to launch deadly attacks regularly, while more than one million Somalis are displaced due to conflict and drought. One million more have crossed into neighbouring countries, mainly Kenya and Ethiopia.

A 2013 report published by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) revealed that over 250,000 Somalis, many of them children under five, died as a result of famine between October 2010 and April 2012. They were unable to receive any humanitarian assistance, in part, due to insecurity.

What is UNSOM’s role?

On 6 March 2013 the Security Council had, while partially lifting a 20-year-oldarms embargo on Somalia and extending the mandate of the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM), for another year, agreed with the UN Secretary-General that the UN Political Office for Somalia (UNPOS) had “fulfilled its obligation” and needed to be replaced by an integrated mission to give the Somali administration “a single door to knock on”.

The new mission, to be headed by a special representative of the Secretary-General would include, “the provision of policy advice to the Federal Government and AMISOM on peace-building and state-building in the areas of governance, security sector reform and rule of law (including the disengagement of combatants); development of a federal system (including preparations for elections in 2016); and coordination of international donor support.”

All the UN country teams, both political and humanitarian in Somalia, would be expected, with immediate effect, to coordinate all their activities with the head of the newly established mission.

The office of the UN humanitarian coordinator for Somalia is expected to fall under the office of the special representative from the beginning January 2014.

What now for UNPOS and AMISOM?

With the creation of an integrated mission, UNPOS ceases to exist. Established in 1995 and headed by a special representative of the Secretary-General, UNPOS’s role was mainly political, facilitating political dialogue and peace-building activities. In his letter to the UNSC seeking the establishment of an integrated mission in Somalia, the Secretary-General said UNPOS had fulfilled its mandate and should “be dissolved and replaced by a new expanded special political mission as soon as possible”.

The Somalia Federal Government is largely propped up by the 18,000-strong AMISOM force.

A technical assistance mission to Somalia by the Secretary-General recommended in its report “use of local UN-contracted and trained security guards, the impending deployment of an AMISOM guard force in Mogadishu, and reliance on Somali National Security Forces (SNSF). If these are deemed insufficient, UN Guard Units or international private security companies could be utilized.”

AMISOM has always been involved in limited humanitarian assistance but it is not clear if this will continue with UNSOM.

The UNSC in its resolution, urges the newly appointed special representative to align closely with other stakeholders in Somalia, including UN country teams, the federal government, AMISOM, the Intergovernmental Authority for Development (IGAD), the European Union and “other regional, bilateral and multilateral partners”.

Experts, say the success of UNSOM will depend on whether it aligns its operations with the different actors in Somalia, some of whom may have qualms about sharing their areas of expertise and/or influence.

“The number of pivotal actors dealing with Somalia has increased as of late, not least as new donors have come in and stepped up their support. Hence, if the international community is serious about UNSOM and would like to see it fulfil its mandate, actors need to be aligned behind UNSOM,” Dominik Balthasar, an expert on Somalia at Chatham House, told IRIN. “Yet, this might possibly be a hard bullet to bite for other actors such as AMISOM or IGAD, as the participation of UNSOM is likely to restrict the roles they have played thus far.”

Abdi Aynte, executive director of the Heritage Institute for Policy Studies (HIPS), a Mogadishu-based think tank, said: “With respect to its relations with AMISOM, the hope is that they become mutually reinforcing [and] not mutually exclusive [since] AMISOM is widely viewed positively.”

What are the merits of UNSOM? 

UNSOM will merge the UN’s humanitarian and political operations in Somalia, providing an opportunity to harness the operational capacities of the many agencies into a single mission.

“It looks like an ambitious plan and is probably the most significant engagement in Somalia by the UN in decades,” Cedric Barnes, director, Horn of Africa programmes at the International Crisis Group, told IRIN.

HIPS’s Aynte said the integrated mission will provide a single international community narrative on Somalia, something he says the Somalis have wanted for a long time.

A unification of the development and humanitarian pillars in Somalia, others have argued, would help marshal the much-needed international funding to remedy the situation in Somalia while also “creating coherence and unifying strategies”.

Elmi Ahmed Duale, Somalia’s ambassador to the UN, described the resolution as important and said it had ensured “there was only “one door” to knock on, “as opposed to fragmented approaches in coordinating assistance”.

According to ICG’s Barnes, this will be dependent on how much the government is willing to cede in the new engagement.

“It would be interesting to see how this will play out with a government that might want to assert authority while at the same time fronting the issue of sovereignty,” Barnes added.

The fact that Al Shabab is listed as a terrorist group has made it difficult for many humanitarian agencies to have an engagement with it, at least for the purposes of offering humanitarian assistance in areas still under the group’s control.

Why the dissenting voices against UNSOM?

Humanitarians have voiced their concerns against merging humanitarian operations with political and military activities, arguing it would make their work in Somalia difficult as it runs the risk of delegitimizing humanitarian actors.

Photo: James Reinl/IRIN

In Somalia, 2.7 million are in need of humanitarian assistance

“As many Somalis continue to struggle to obtain the basic necessities for survival, such as food, health care, and protection from violence, humanitarian assistance must remain a priority and it must remain completely independent of any political agenda,” Jerome Oberreit, secretary-general of Médecins Sans Frontières, said in a statement.

“The humanitarian aid system must not be co-opted as an implementing partner of counter-insurgency or stabilization efforts in Somalia,” he added.

In March, InterAction, The International Council of Voluntary Agencies (ICVA) and Voluntary Organizations in Cooperation in Emergencies (VOICE), said in a joint statement that the decision risked jeopardizing the delivery of impartial humanitarian assistance in the country: “By requiring UN humanitarian coordination to fall under the political mandate of the new UN peace-building mission in Somalia, the neutrality, impartiality and independence of humanitarian action will be compromised.”

Russel Geekie, public information officer at the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, Somalia office, said: “The integration should not hamper the delivery of aid. In its most recent resolution on Somalia (SC resolution 2102, which follows up on 2093), the Security Council reiterated that impartial, neutral and independent humanitarian assistance must be ensured, wherever those in need are.”

According Chatham House’s Balthasar, integrating humanitarian operations into the broader politico-military stabilization plans “runs the risk of constraining humanitarian space, but that this does not necessarily need to be the case. Moreover, it should not be forgotten that humanitarian aid has always been political and that it has frequently been instrumentalized by a wide variety of actors – not least by those who oppose the government.” With an eye towards the dynamics surrounding humanitarian space in Somalia, he added that ever since Al Shabab had been put on the back foot, humanitarian actors who had become accustomed to negotiating with the insurgents to deliver humanitarian aid lacked clarity over who was in control and how to safely deliver aid.

“Basically, the political situation on the ground appears to have become more, rather than less, complicated. In this situation, devising an integrated mission might not be the worst of all options for the sake of prioritizing stability and the establishment of functioning structures of governance,” he added.

Source: IRIN

An estimated 924 people of different nationalities were currently working in Mogadishu illegally, officials said.

“I want to pay tribute to the countries and to their soldiers who paid such an enormously heavy price,” U.N. Deputy Secretary-General Jan Eliasson told reporters.

“You would be shocked to learn that maybe it is up to 3,000 AMISOM (African Union Mission in Somalia) soldiers that have been killed during these years that AMISOM has been there,” he said.

The 17,700 strong African Union force began deploying to Somalia in 2007. It includes troops from Burundi, Uganda, Kenya, Sierra Leone and Djibouti.

“Uganda, Burundi have paid a tremendous price,” he added. “The Kenyan troops are, of course, also a large part of AMISOM.”

By way of comparison, 3,096 U.N. peacekeepers have died since 1948, according to the website of the U.N. Department of Peacekeeping Operations.

Somalia is only just emerging from two decades of civil war. Its government is struggling to rebuild a country riven by clan divisions and whose infrastructure and institutions are in tatters.

A newly appointed parliament last year elected a new president, the first vote of its kind since the toppling of former military dictator Mohamed Siad Barre in 1991.

African Union peacekeepers have been largely responsible for pushing al Qaeda-linked al Shabaab out of the capital Mogadishu and other urban centers in the past two years, but the group is still able to launch major attacks, including a suicide bombing on Sunday that killed at least eight people.

Eliasson said on the sidelines of a donor conference in London earlier this week that sought pledges to rebuild Somalia that the United Nations has given strong backing to the country’s new leadership.

Source: Reuterrs

At least 20 people have been killed, several by gunshots, and more than 300 others wounded in clashes since March between opposition supporters, security forces and President Alpha Conde’s backers in the world’s top bauxite producer.

Opposition parties, which have organised weekly protests, have accused Conde, who took office in 2010 following Guinea’s first democratic transfer of power since 1958, of trying to rig the polls.

“We have decided to postpone our protest to enable the United Nations to take over the process and give dialogue a chance,” said Sidya Toure, Guinea’s former prime minister who is now one of the opposition leaders.

“We are giving Said Djinnit (U.N. special representative in the region), one week for the mediation. We are showing good faith,” Sidya told Reuters on Wednesday.

The opposition, which says Conde did not consult them before announcing a poll date, has called on its supporters to protest until the president backs down and calls off the June 30 poll.

The opposition also has demanded that South African firm Waymark be stripped of a contract to revise the voter list and that the mostly opposition-aligned Guinean diaspora be allowed to vote.

The government has rejected the opposition demands.

Failure to agree on the organisation of the poll has stirred up ethnic violence and jeopardised economic gains made since Conde came to power.

Source: Reuters

Somalia’s government is seeking to impose stability in a country ravaged by two decades of civil war, lawlessness and famine, and by its own admission it needs help from outside to rebuild decimated infrastructure and institutions.

At the end of the London summit Britain committed around 180 million pounds ($279 million), including funding for a planned doubling of the police force, and the United States donated $40 million on top of the $1.5 billion it has given since 2009.

Britain, which recently opened a makeshift embassy in the Somali capital Mogadishu protected by two blast walls, also said it would supply military experts to bolster security forces seeking to stamp out Islamic insurgents.

The country is enjoying a delicate recovery but relies heavily on others for its security.

An African Union military offensive weakened the al Qaeda-linked Islamist rebel group al Shabaab and piracy in key sea lanes off Somalia is at an all-time low thanks largely to a foreign naval presence.

“New terrorist threats have emerged in parts of Africa,” British Prime Minister David Cameron said at the end of the summit. “Radicalism is poisoning young Somali minds and breeding terrorism and extremism.

“This is a threat to our security, and if we ignore it, we will be making the same mistakes in Somalia that we made in Afghanistan in the 1990s,” he added.

BEGINNING OF NEW SOMALIA

British officials did not say when the military experts, or how many, would go to Somalia. Some of the British money is earmarked for doubling police numbers to about 12,000, and some for rebuilding the Mogadishu’s main prison.

Cash is also earmarked for training judges and creating mobile courts to tour lawless areas of the country.

And Britain will help boost radio communications on the Somali coast to combat piracy that the World Bank has estimated costs the world economy $18 billion despite the dramatic drop in incidents so far this year.

Speaking alongside Cameron, Somali President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud said Somalia had been given a chance to prove it could become a stable, inclusive, law-abiding country.

“We will prove in the eyes of the world that we will deliver … It’s the beginning of a new Somalia,” he said.

The conference took place at what organizers called a “pivotal” moment, after new parliamentarians were appointed last year who elected Mohamud. The vote was the first of its kind since military dictator Mohamed Siad Barre was toppled in 1991.

While lauding improved stability in Somalia, speakers urged caution. On Sunday a suicide bomber attacked a convoy carrying Qatari officials in Mogadishu, killing at least eight Somalis. The attack was later claimed by al Shabaab.

Somalia also must integrate the breakaway district of Somaliland and semi-autonomous Puntland region into a federal structure, ahead of elections scheduled for 2016. Somaliland boycotted the conference and Puntland said it was not invited.

Cameron played down the boycott, saying he had “very good” discussions with the Somaliland president recently. Mohamud said he had listened to the concerns of all “stakeholders” in Somalia ahead of the conference.

More than 50 delegates and organizations attended the conference, including Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta, who faces charges of crimes against humanity at the International Criminal Court related to allegations of orchestrating election violence.

Britain justified Kenyatta’s presence due to Kenya’s importance in helping to stabilize neighbor Somalia. Cameron’s office confirmed he met Kenyatta, but declined to say if it was a formal meeting or on the summit sidelines.

Kenyatta’s office said they had formal bilateral talks and that Cameron was keen to boost British trade with Kenya.

Source: Reuters