Three-fourths of girls aged 10 to 14 in the Puntland and Somaliland regions have not been circumcised, whereas more than 98% of women aged 15 and above have, the survey found.
UNICEF and its regional partners surveyed more than 9,000 families in Puntland and Somaliland in the 2011 global Multiple-Indicator Cluster Survey. This is the first time the survey included questions on daughters’ ages and whether they were circumcised.
UNICEF Chief of Child Protection in Somalia Sheema Sen Gupta called the findings a promising indicator for long term reductions in the practice, which the UN General Assembly banned in December.
“FGM is practiced just around puberty,” Gupta said. “It usually spikes in the [aged] 10 to 14 group and to see that it was at 25%, that was fantastic.”
There are reports coming from Baled Hawo region in Gedo that three prisoners in the custody of the Government were last night shot dead.
This happened after the Government troops took the prisoners out of the cells and started to persecute two of the prisoners who were suspected to be members of Alshabab. The third prisoner was said to be a student and a stray bullet caught him during the incident which resulted in his death.
Shabelle media contacted the local Gedo administration, their response was that it was a mistake that happened and cannot be explained how it happened and why it happened. They promised leaders of the region that they will sit down and find a solution for the problem.
The killing of prisoners in Baled Hawo town comes weeks after similar incidents that occurred at the prisons in Mogadishu. The federal government has not yet explained the reasons behind these ugly incidents.
Part of the propaganda of NATO country governments to sell their “humanitarian” wars to their subjects is to claim that the bloody wars are “for women’s rights”.
This video is called Somali women raped by Ethiopian troops.
In Somalia, the invaders tried to prop a regime in parts of the capital Mogadishu, consisting of brutal warlords who during the 1990s had dragged the dead bodies of US American soldiers through the streets.
How does this pro Pentagon pro NATO government act in women’s rights issues?
A human rights group has urged Somali authorities to drop charges against a woman who accused security forces of raping her.
The woman, who has not been named, could face between three and six years in prison for insulting a government body and making a false accusation.
Four others, including her husband and a journalist, have also been charged.
US-based Human Rights Watch said the charges “made a mockery of the new Somali government’s priorities”.
…
‘Politically motivated’
Attorney General Abdulkadir Mohamed Muse brought charges against the five of insulting a government body and persuading someone to give false evidence or giving false evidence, among other accusations, in a court in the capital, Mogadishu, on Tuesday.
Map
The charged journalist, Abdiaziz Abdinur Ibrahim, has been in detention since 10 January.
Two days earlier he had interviewed the woman about the rape allegations, but did not report the story.
According to Human Rights Watch, the woman retracted her allegations after two days of police interrogation without a lawyer present.
Afterwards she was released, but her husband was arrested in her place. A man and woman who helped introduce her to the journalist were also arrested.
Mr Muse told the BBC Somali service on Saturday that the accused had plotted to discredit the government and its security forces – and the woman and her accomplices had been paid by the journalist to lie.
An investigation had revealed that the police station where the woman had originally reported the alleged rape in Hodan, a district in Mogadishu where many displaced people live, had found no medical evidence to back up her rape allegation, he said.
The BBC’s Mohamed Mwalimu in Mogadishu says the woman, who is caring for a child, has to report to the police twice a day. The other four accused remain in jail.
Media organisations in the city have been outraged by the case and have held demonstrations in protest, he says.
“Bringing charges against a woman who alleges rape makes a mockery of the new Somali government’s priorities,” Daniel Bekele, Africa director at Human Rights Watch, said in a statement.
“The police ‘investigation’ in this case was a politically motivated attempt to blame and silence those who report on the pervasive problem of sexual violence by Somali security forces.”
He said donor countries funding Somalia’s police force and criminal justice system needed to make it clear that “they won’t be party to injustices”.
…
When President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud was asked about the case on a visit to the US earlier this month, he said it was a legal matter in which he could not interfere.
The trial will resume on Saturday in Banadir regional court in Mogadishu.
DemocracyNow.org – Premiering this week at the Sundance Film Festival in Utah, the new documentary, “Dirty Wars: The World Is a Battlefield,” follows investigative reporter Jeremy Scahill to Afghanistan, Somalia and Yemen as he chases down the hidden truths behind America’s expanding covert wars. We’re joined by Scahill and the film’s director, Rick Rowley, an independent journalist with Big Noise Films.
“One of the things that humbles both of us is [when] you arrive at a village in Afghanistan and knock on someone’s door, you’re the first American they’ve seen since the Americans that kicked that door in and killed half their family,” Rowley says. “We promised them that we would do everything we could to make their stories be heard in the U.S. — finally, we’re able to keep those promises.”
Shalanbod — Hundreds of people, including women and children have Monday taken to the main streets in Shalanbod town of Lower Shabelle Region, 110 Km south of Mogadishu, to protest against increasing robbery.
Reports said the protesters gathered at squares in the city as they have been carrying banners with written slogans against Somali forces controlling the town.
“The army began robbing, killing and beating the local civilians, after they were attacked yesterday by unknown assailants. We don’t know why they [forces] are committing such offence acts,” a resident [said] at the rally.
However, the residents called upon the Somali government to stop soon the army from continuing their hateful actions in the town and bring to justice [those] who committed robbery.
Kenyan Amisom soldier kills six Somali civilians: here.
Janay Abdala — At least nine innocent civilians were massacred by the Kenyan military, serving under the African Union mission in Somalia (AMISOM) in southern Somali village on Sunday, and reports said.
The shooting happened in Janay Abdalla, a small village located just about 50km from the militant-held port city of Kismayo, when Al shabab fighters attacked the allied forces in the area.
On Monday, Somali and Kenyan forces are reportedly reached in Janay Abdalla, where the Kenyan forces shot and killed at least 9 pastoral men as they were buying sugar at shopping malls in the village.
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Locals expressed shock and angry over the automatic mass killing by Kenyan forces and called for community protection during such military operations.
One of the world’s rarest antelope now has a new home in Marasabit. The Kenya Wildlife Service and the Northern Rangeland Trust have successfully introduced the rare species of the antelope – the hirola – to a sanctuary in Ishaqbini. The hirola is the world’s most endangered antelope having rapidly declined from roughly 14,000 in the 1970s to just about 430 today.
It is only found in small pockets of bushland in Kenya and Somalia. It is also said that it is likely to be the first mammal to become extinct in Africa in modern history if steps are not taken protect it. In collaboration with KWS, the Northern Rangeland Trust have completed, with the help of the Nature Conservancy, a 3,000 acre predator-proof sanctuary.
The aim of the sanctuary is to protect endangered animals by providing a secure environment for them to increase in population. It is seen by experts as possibly the last effort to save the hirola from extinction. The six-day operation saw the hirolas being tagged and individually airlifted by helicopter to the new sactuary from the Tana area and the Somali border.
Two oryx, eight topi, eight zebra and a few giraffes were also transported to the safe-haven. The capture and relocation was a success with no deaths recorded. The team also managed to remove six cheetahs and six hyenas and place them outside the fenced area. The future looks hopeful for the Hirola with the establishment of the new sanctuary in Kenya, and the animals will continue to be monitored.
Somalia: Air Strikes Hit Coastal Town in Bari Region
24 August 2012
Qandala — Air strikes reportedly from a US military aircraft or naval ship on the coastal town of Qandala caused damage to many buildings in the town, Garowe Online reports.
According to sources in Qandala the strikes hit Thursday afternoon after naval ships which had been patrolling the coast of Qandala for days. It is unclear as of yet if the strikes were from a naval ship or planes that had taken off from the naval ship as attempts to reach US naval bases stationed in Somali waters failed.
However residents in Qandala say that the strikes were from planes which had been doing surveillance on the coastal town for days. Sources close to Puntland government say that the areas which the US naval ships targeted were areas of specific interest. Last month Yemeni Al Qaeda operative and two other Al Shabaab agents smuggled in explosives but were caught by Puntland police. The two Al Shabaab agents escaped from the scene.
So, an excellent reason to bomb civilian buildings a month later. [Sarcasm off]
According to Puntland government the police are closing in on the two agents after uncovering new leads in the investigation. … Many Bossaso residents rushed to Qandala after hearing about the airstrikes bringing medicine and supplies to the remote coastal town.
It would be unfair to say that the United States armed forces are the only such problem in Somalia. So are some of their allies.
If someone dies, then usually his family and friends mourn. One should respect mourners.
However, millions of people in East Africa will react to this news with: “Good riddance to bad rubbish”.
Meles Zenawi made an ideological somersault from Marxism as interpreted by Albanian Party of Labour leader Enver Hoxha to the “free markets” (free for big corporations) of Milton Friedman and Margaret Thatcher.
Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi has died aged 57 in a hospital “abroad”, the government says.
It did not give details but an EU spokesman later told journalists he had died in Brussels, Belgium. …
Brussels is not so far from the Hague. It is a pity that Zenawi did not go from Brussels to the Hague to stand trial at the local international war crimes court.
Mr Meles took power as the leader of rebels that ousted communist leader Mengistu Haile Mariam in 1991. …
That Christine Lagarde of the IMF praises Zenawi is also not so surprising. Someone whose disastrous Thatcherite policies bring starvation to Greece will like a dictator bringing starvation to his own people.
[Government spokesman]Mr Bereket insisted Ethiopia was stable and “everything will continue as charted” by the late prime minister.
For the sake of the Ethiopian people, I surely hope not!
Three weeks ago, spokesman Mr Bereket dismissed reports Mr Meles was critically ill, and declined to give any details about Mr Meles’ whereabouts. …
Under Mr Meles, Ethiopia became a staunch US ally, receiving hundreds of millions of dollars in aid over the years, and hosting the US military drones that patrol East Africa.
He won accolades from the West for sending troops to battle Islamist militants in Somalia, says the BBC’s James Copnall.
Imperialist powers mourn death of Ethiopia’s Meles Zenawi: here.
The aid spending watchdog revealed today that Britain could have alleviated more suffering in the Horn of Africa if it had reacted quicker to last year’s food crisis: here.
Now, one young Afghan woman has refused to play the role of puppet of the tokenism of politicians and media. …
Ms Ahadgar herself brought the uncertainty to an end when she phoned her family in a poor quarter of Kabul to tell them that she was on her way to claim political asylum in Norway. …
If this would have been reported (truly or falsely) about a Cuban athlete, who, unlike Ms Ahadgar, very likely would not have “finished a minute or more behind the winners”, then it would have been all over the big media headlines, especially in the USA.
Afghanistan being George W. Bush’s ‘new’ Afghanistan, however, I did not manage to find United States corporate media mentioning this. I just found this, from CBC in Canada:
Despite the fact that she is far from being an Olympic favourite, the head of the Afghan Olympic Federation has threatened to throw her family in jail, or worse, if Ahadgar doesn’t return.
The runner who once wanted to bring glory to her country is now running for her life.
Contrary to Ms Ahadgar from Afghanistan, Ms Samia Yusuf Omar from Somalia really wanted to run at the Olympic games. So much so, that in 2010-early 2012, she went on a long, complex, dangerous journey to reach London. First, from Somalia to Ethiopia. A dictatorship which repeatedly has invaded Somalia and has committed atrocities there. Then, from Ethiopia to the violent dictatorship Sudan.
Then, from Sudan to Libya. Samia Yusuf Omar may have dreamt of sailing comfortably the Mediterranean from Libya to Europe.
That dream did not come true. There was a revolt in Libya, hijacked by NATO countries to start their oily “humanitarian” war. Some of the anti-Ghadaffi Libyan rebels were racists. People like Samia Yusuf Omar with her black skin had to fear for their lives.
Sudanese detainees in Libyan prisons face poor food and health conditions and receive inhumane treatment from prison authorities, one of the Sudanese inmates told Radio Dabanga: here.
The violence of the Libyan war is still continuing. To save her life, Samia Yusuf Omar apparently went aboard a small ship with far too many desperate refugees on it.
That meant her death, as the BBC story here below says.
What the BBC story does not say is that the death of Samia Yusuf Omar and her fellow refugees was not inevitable.
There were and are plenty of NATO warships not far from the Libyan coast. According to international law, it is their duty to save refugees in danger of drowning.
The head of Somalia’s National Olympic Committee confirmed to the BBC that she had died but did not say how.
Samia competed in the 200m event at the Beijing Olympics in 2008 despite having almost no formal training.
Although she came in last place, several seconds behind the other competitors, the BBC’s Alan Johnston in Rome says it is extraordinary that she was able to take part at all.
She had grown up and trained in the Somali capital, Mogadishu, facing war, poverty, a complete lack of athletics facilities and prejudice from some quarters against women participating in sports.
According to a profile of Samia on al-Jazeera, she faced death threats and intimidation when she returned to Somalia after the 2008 Olympics, with the Islamist militia al-Shabab controlling parts of the capital.
‘We will not forget’
In October 2010, the runner is reported to have moved to Ethiopia in search of a coach to help her train for the London 2012 Olympics.
What happened between then and her apparent death in the Mediterranean Sea is unclear.
According to al-Jazeera, there were no guarantees that she would be accepted to train at the stadium in Addis Ababa – it was dependent on her running times and permission from the Ethiopian Athletics Federation.
Reports in Italian media suggest she may have been hoping to find a coach in Europe who could help her reach the London Olympics.
Italian newspaper Corriere Della Serra [sic; Sera] says Samia’s fate only came to light when former Somali Olympic athlete Abdi Bile brought it up at a talk.
He mentioned Mo Farah, the Somalian runner who moved to the United Kingdom aged 12 and triumphed in this year’s Olympics.
“We are happy for Mo – he is our pride,” he said. “But we will not forget Samia.”
Somalia Government Resumes Evicting Mogadishu Squatters: here.
