Somali Ambassador to Turkey visits Somali students in Istanbul (Somali Embassy staff).
Somali students numbering 250 offered scholarships at higher learning institutions in Turkey flew from Mogadishu last week. Their destination was Istanbul, the most cosmopolitan city in the Euro-Asian country.
Most of the students passed examinations held online. Thus, those who converged at Mogadishu’s Aden Abdulle International Airport came from all over Somalia.
In the past year, Turkish and Somali educational officials used to test potential candidates, but this time online exams made selection easier.
To see the departing students off, the Turkish Ambassador to Somalia, Dr Koni Torun, said the students will be attending different universities in Turkey.
“150 students will be attending masters’ and doctoral studies,” said Dr Torun. He added that the remaining students will be studying graduate courses.
Ever since the Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan visited the Somali capital Mogadishu in August 2011, Turkey has been offering humanitarian and development assistance to Somalia.
Earlier batch
Last year, hundreds of Somali students benefited from scholarships to Turkey. In addition, diverse projects run and funded by Turkish institutions including schools, colleges, hospitals are progressing in Mogadishu.
Others are planned elsewhere in Somalia, according to Turkish diplomats in the Horn of Africa country.
All the 250 scholarship holders jetted off on a Turkish Airline plane. “This is, nevertheless, another gesture to help Somalia recover from years of neglect,” said Ambassador Torun.
Somali Football Federation will soon take over the Mogadishu Stadium, marking the federation’s leading role in resisting al-Shabaab’s austere lifestyle.
In a sign of improved security in Somalia, African Union (AU) troops will return Mogadishu Stadium, the most abused sports facility in a region with a history of battered stadiums, to the Somali Football Federation (SFF).
The AU decision highlights the recent, significant setbacks suffered by al-Shabaab, the al-Qaeda-linked Islamist militia that banned football alongside bras, music, movies, moustaches and gold fillings during the years that it controlled large chunks of football-crazy Somalia, including the stadium.
It also celebrates the SFF’s leading role in resisting al-Shabaab’s austere lifestyle based on an interpretation of Islamic law that is contested even in jihadist circles and a successful campaign to win back child soldiers by offering them a future in football.
The SFF hopes to host a football tournament in December for the first time in more than two decades in the 70,000-seat stadium, which was built with Chinese aid in the 1970s and once was the region’s largest sport facility.
Losing control
The tournament would symbolize Somalia’s fragile retreat from the brink following a string of military defeats by al-Shabaab at the hands of the African peacekeepers and the Somali military. Al-Shabaab last month lost control of its last urban outpost but still has a foothold in southern and central parts of the country. In September Hassan Sheikh Mohamud became the first Somali president to be elected by Parliament and inaugurated since the country slipped into civil war in 1991.
Mogadishu Stadium, occupying strategic ground in the northern part of the city, has since been controlled by a host of militias, including al-Shabaab, which used it for training and public executions until last year when the AU established its command headquarters in the facility.
As a result, the facility topped the list of abuse of stadiums that bear the scars of the battles fought on their terrain in a swath of land stretching from the Gulf to the Atlantic coast of Africa in which militants and autocrats use stadiums for their own purposes.
In Iraq, deposed dictator Saddam Hussein’s sadistic son Uday humiliated national football team players in Baghdad’s Stadium for the People when they failed to perform. U.S. and Iraqi forces discovered mass graves in several Iraqi stadiums following the overthrow of Saddam.
In the last 20 months, Syrian security forces have herded anti-government protesters into stadiums in Latakia, Daraa and Baniyas. The use of the stadiums evoked memories of the government’s 1982 assault on the Syrian city of Hama to crush an earlier uprising by the Muslim Brotherhood in which at least 10,000 people were killed. A 1983 Amnesty International report charged that the city’s stadium was used at the time to detain large numbers of residents who were left for days in the open without food or shelter.
Christian militia men responsible for the 1982 massacres in the Beirut Palestinian refugee camps of Sabra and Shatilla, to which Israeli invasion forces turned a blind eye, converted a local football pitch into their staging ground.
Egyptian stadiums were for years the venue of pitched battles between security forces and militant football fans who refused to concede control of a space they considered their own to a regime they increasingly saw as brutal and corrupt.
The return of the ground in Mogadishu follows a meeting in the stadium between commanders of the African Union Peacekeepers in Somalia (AMISOM) and SFF officials led by Secretary-General Abdi Qani Said Arab.
Football unites
“In December 2010 we held the first edition of a regional football tournament in more than 20 years and that tournament yielded positive results in terms of disarming child soldiers, creating friendship among people and spreading football throughout the country,” Arab said after the meeting.
Arab was referring to an SFF campaign backed by world football body FIFA and local businessmen under the slogan “Put down the gun, pick up the ball” that threw down a gauntlet to jihadists by luring child soldiers away from them.
“However difficult our situation is, we believe football can play a major role in helping peace and stability prevail in our country, and that is what our federation has long been striving to attain. Football is here to stay, not only as a game to be played but as a catalyst for peace and harmony in society,” Shafi’i Moyhaddin, one of the driving forces behind the campaign, said in an interview last year.
Mahad Mohammed was one of hundreds of children the association assisted in swapping jihad for football, the only institution that competed with radical Islam in offering young populations a prospect of a better life.
“People were afraid of me when I had an AK-47; now they love and congratulate me. I thank the football federation, they helped me. I just drifted into being a soldier; it is hard to say how it happened. Some friends of mine ended up being fighters and they used to tell me that it was a good and exciting life and much better than doing nothing or being on the streets. After I spent some time doing that, I understood that it wasn’t like that at all and I was happy to get out,” Mahad said.
Somalis chat at a beach-side restaurant earlier this month. After two decades of civil war, Somali’s capital, Mogadishu, is beginning to recover (Feisal Omar/Reuters/Landov).
There is a remarkable change going on in Mogadishu, Somalia — often dubbed the world’s most dangerous city. For starters, it may not deserve that title anymore.
Last year, African Union forces drove the Islamist militant group al-Shabab out of Mogadishu. Now, Somalia has a new president and prime minister who have replaced the corrupt and unpopular transitional government.
Hope is edging aside despair, and Mogadishu is coming back to life.
It’s hard to believe, but people are talking about “the Mogadishu boom.” With more and more displaced Somalis moving back to the city every day, now there are traffic jams.
Enrollment at the Hamar Jajab Primary School has doubled since the last academic year. The city’s first gas stations and a supermarket are under construction. Scaffolding is up and buildings are getting new coats of paint. There are 15 new radio stations, and with no regulation of anything in Somalia, the FM dial is a free-for-all.
A Complete Overhaul Needed
Can Mogadishu accommodate everyone who wants to come home?
Two decades of civil war destroyed or heavily damaged 80 percent of the city’s structures. Now, housing is scarce and rents have gone crazy.
Abdi Rahman, a foreman for a large East African construction company, sits in the foyer of a just finished villa soon to be occupied by a Danish refugee agency.
A year ago, Rahman says, the house would have rented for $1,000 per month. Today, his company would ask $8,000 for it.
Mogadishu presents unique challenges for builders. When it came time to pour the slab on the seventh floor of a building they were working on, Rahman says there were no construction cranes in the city.
So he hired 200 men to form a bucket brigade and pass 3 tons of concrete — bucket by bucket — from the ground floor to the seventh floor. Labor is cheap and plentiful, he says, but unskilled.
Workers shovel sand into blast barriers that surround the new villa. When an American journalist with a microphone shows up, they break into a spontaneous work song, which roughly translates: “Somalis have camels, we are very proud of our camels, people in the West do not have camels.”
The crew just found an artillery shell inside the sand.
“It’s very common, very common,” Rahman says. “Sometimes we find them unexploded.”
The Militia Problem
This empty villa had been filled with internally displaced persons. There are more than 250,000 of them living in ragged tents throughout Mogadishu. They moved to the city to flee violence and famine, but were summarily evicted to make room for paying tenants, which is happening more and more.
That’s just one of the problems on the desk of Mogadishu’s mayor, Mohamud Ahmed Nur. He’s chief executive of a city of 2.5 million people that lacks clean water, paved roads, streetlights, fire protection — and the list goes on.
“Mogadishu used to be one of the most beautiful cities in Africa, and still we can make it like that,” Nur says.
Somalia’s new president, Hassan Sheikh Mohamud, has said security is his first, second and third priority. The mayor concurs. On a recent morning, he was reviewing his daily security briefing from the police.
“Near Benadir hospital, freelance militias — they shoot each other, they open fire. A hand grenade has been thrown,” he says.
The mayor says that while the warlords have stopped fighting for control of the city, militias still roam the streets, heavily armed and looking for trouble.
“So my problem in the city right now, it’s not al-Shabab. My problem is freelance militias,” Nur says.
Al-Shabab is, in fact, very much still a problem in many parts of Somalia. Since they were routed from Mogadishu 14 months ago, and more recently from the southern city of Kismayo, the militants have settled into a bloody campaign of targeted attacks.
Last month, al-Shabab suicide bombers blew themselves up outside the hotel where the president was giving his first press conference. The next week, there was a suicide attack on a popular restaurant, killing 15 patrons.
Beginning To Hope
A group of Somali returnees sits around a table after lunch, puffing on a water pipe. Deeq Mohammad Afrika is a 27-year-old business consultant who moved back to the city from Amsterdam, and is urging his friends to do the same. But everyone has to know his own comfort zone.
“We’re all scared, you know? There’s a huge fear here. Everyone’s scared of the terrorism attacks and all that stuff. But in Mogadishu there’s a thin line between hope and fear. The hope is greater,” Afrika says.
A symbol of that hope is the government’s formation of its new tourism department.
Farah Salad Dharar is a congenial, smooth-faced man who was appointed assistant director of tourism of Somalia six months ago. He and the director recently attended a conference on East African tourism, if not to promote Somali tourism — which doesn’t exist yet — then at least to introduce the concept.
“Somalia has a lot of attractions, a lot of tourism attractions. But I think we have to do a lot of things to attract the tourists,” Dharar says.
Mogadishu was once a gem of the Swahili coast, with its poetic Italianate and arabesque architecture, ancient mosques and comely beachfront. Today it is all a ruin. But for the first time in a long while, Somalis are daring to talk about the rebirth of their wounded city.
The Italian foreign minister has made a surprise visit to Somalia in an effort to renew ties, news agencies have reported.
Giulio Terzi’s visit to the capital Mogadishu on Tuesday is the first high-level visit from an official from Rome in two decades.
Welcoming Terzi, Somalia’s newly elected President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud said he was looking forward to
renewed co-operation between his country and its former colonial master.
“Previously, Italian governments took part in development process in Somalia and now they are coming back
to help with development and stability of Somalia,” Mohamud told a news conference.
Terzi’s visit is likely to be seen as a sign of improved security and confidence since Africa Union troops drove al-Shabab fighters out of the capital and other major cities which were previously under their control.
Terzi said his country would co-operate with Somalia in areas of development and security within the country.
“[This is] the opportunity to assure the president of a strong commitment from the Italian government and all the
Italian institutions of increased areas of co-operations which grow from economic development, legal system,
judiciary and also co-operation among security operations and defence,” Terzi said.
Terzi’s visit comes just days after the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) announced the building of a new refugee camp in Ethiopia to deal with the continued influx of Somalis into the country.
“With people still arriving at Dollo Ado, the Ethiopian Government has authorised the opening of a sixth site and land for this has been designated between the town of Kole and Kobe camp, some 54 kilometres north of Dollo Ado town,” Andrej Mahecic, a spokesperson UNHCR, said.
More than a million Somalis live as refugees in neighbouring countries, with around half of these living in Kenya.
Ethiopia hosts 214,000 displaced persons in five camps at Dollo Ado as well as several hundred kilometres to the north in the eastern city of Jijiga.
The visit comes just over a year after Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the Turkish prime minister, visited Mogadishu, amid one of the most devastating droughts to hit the Horn of Africa in decades.
Erdogan’s visit in August 2011 was the first by a non-African leader to the conflict-torn Mogadishu in nearly two decades, a move that was described as unprecedented at the time.
Mohamud’s election by Somali lawmakers as president was hailed by his supporters as a vote for change in a country that has lacked effective central government since 1991.
A cook at Lido Seafood Restaurant prepares fresh fish and lobsters. [Majid Ahmed/Sabahi]
As security conditions improve in Mogadishu, Somali businessmen and returning expatriates have opened modern restaurants offering lobster and various kinds of fresh fish at the Lido and Jazira beaches.
“There are a limitless number of restaurants in Mogadishu, but we came up with something unique,” said Qasim Mohamed Nur, marketing director at Lido Seafood Restaurant, which opened in August.
“Lido Seafood Restaurant stands out among other typical restaurants because it lies on the beach and includes entertainment facilities and tourist attractions allowing visitors — both local residents and foreigners — to enjoy the area’s beautiful view while sampling seafood dishes,” he told Sabahi.
Nur said the restaurant’s customers include businessmen, politicians, government employees, returning Somali expatriates and regular workers from the area. He said the most popular dishes include lobster, tuna and shark.
Demand for seafood restaurants
“During the weekends, the restaurant is packed with customers,” Nur said. “Lido Restaurant overlooks the beach, far from the noise of the city. Customers like to enjoy their seafood meals in a wonderful atmosphere, enjoying the fresh air and the beautiful ocean view.”
Daud Abdirahman, a customer at Lido Seafood Restaurant, said many seafood lovers frequent the seaside restaurant.
“I love seafood and come here twice or three times a week to have fresh seafood at this restaurant,” he told Sabahi while eating fresh lobster with pasta. “This is the best restaurant of choice because of its unique location overlooking the ocean.”
Ahmed Sheikh Mohamed, reception manager at Mogadishu Seafood Restaurant in Hamarweyne, said there is a high demand for seafood restaurants.
“Somalis, particularly residents of coastal cities such as Mogadishu, love having seafood because they grew up in an area that has relied on fishing for ages,” he told Sabahi.
Tourism projects in Mogadishu
Ahmed Hassan, who teaches history and culture at Mogadishu University, says Mogadishu has witnessed dynamic commercial activity due to improved security.
“There are a number of luxury hotels and modern restaurants that have opened their doors throughout the city,” he told Sabahi. “Somali expatriates who have returned from abroad have contributed to driving development forward and creating job opportunities for hundreds of unemployed people.”
“Life has returned to normal in Mogadishu and I hope the city manages to restore its past glory and that in the near future it turns into a tourist destination as it was in the 1980s when the city was one of the most prominent tourist spots in Africa,” he said. “Mogadishu does not lack the potential to become a tourist destination, but it needs more recreational and tourist-related projects, in addition to reinforcing those that already exist, to strengthen the tourism sector.”
Hassan called on the new federal government and the Municipality of Mogadishu to pay attention to the city’s tourism sector because it can generate revenue and attract sizable foreign investment. “It is not a pre-requisite to start massive projects, as small ones are capable of growing if there is ambition and seriousness,” he said.
Security still a concern
Still, insecurity remains a concern as pockets of violence sometimes flare up. On September 20th, two suicide attacks killed at least 14 people and injured 20 others at the Village Restaurant near the Mothers’ House and the National Theatre. Since then, restaurant and hotel have tightened security measures.
Ahmed Jama, who runs the Village Restaurant, said his staff has implemented measures to ensure the safety of visitors.
“Since the suicide attack that targeted the Village Restaurant, we have implemented tight security measures, including thoroughly searching anyone entering the restaurant and [hiring] private guards that secure the restaurant,” he told Sabahi, adding that he is in the process of repairing the damage from the attack.
Nairobi, October 22, 2012-Somali authorities must investigate the shooting of a journalist for a national broadcaster, identify the motive, and bring the perpetrators to justice, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today.
Two gunmen shot Mohamed Mohamud Turyare, reporter and website editor for the Shabelle Media Network, after he left a mosque in the Hawo Tako neighborhood in the Wadajir district of Mogadishu at around 6 p.m. on Sunday, according to local journalists and news reports. Mohamed was hospitalized for gunshot wounds in his chest and abdomen, the journalists said.
Government security personnel in the area returned fire, causing the assailants to flee, local journalists said, citing eyewitnesses. The journalists told CPJ that authorities had not yet ascertained the perpetrators or the motive behind the attack.
“This has been an exceptionally dangerous year for Shabelle Media Network journalists and the Somali press in general,” said CPJ East Africa Consultant Tom Rhodes. “The ongoing attacks against journalists show the government has yet to secure Mogadishu and make it safe for the press and other democratic institutions. Media outlets must also do everything they can to ensure the safety of their staff.”
At least 10 journalists have been killed in Somalia so far in 2012, seven in the capital, according to CPJ research. Among the fatalities are three Shabelle Media journalists, CPJ research shows. In January, unidentified gunmen killed Hassan Osman Abdi, the former Shabelle director. Two months later, three assailants shot dead Mahad Salad Adan, a 20-year-old Shabelle correspondent, near his home. In May, four gunmen killed Shabelle presenter and producer Ahmed Addow Anshur in a market in Mogadishu. Authorities have not brought to justice any of the perpetrators responsible for these murders, CPJ research shows.
Somalia ranks second worldwide on CPJ’s Impunity Index, which spotlights countries where journalists are murdered regularly and killers go free.
· For more data and analysis on Somalia, visit CPJ’s Somalia page here.
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CPJ is a New York-based, independent, nonprofit organization
Charcoal-powered coffee machine – living in a recovering failed state like Somalia means being innovative
At The Village Restaurant, a popular open-air hangout for Mogadishu’s returning diaspora community, a charcoal-powered Italian espresso machine brews Somalia’s best cappuccino.
Wi-fi internet beams throughout the cafe, as patrons check email, download music videos, and keep tabs on Somalia’s latest news.
As Mogadishu shifts from two decades of civil war to a quivering democracy, opportunities for business – from hotels to off-grid espresso makers to cafes like the Village – are flourishing. And so too are the opportunities for bringing them online.
Perched between the tattered ruins of a flattened landscape, the glow of wireless receiver antennas has gradually replaced the orange glow of stray bullets, bringing a new era of global connectivity and freedom of information to the city’s estimated one million residents.
In 2000, Somalia was one of the last African nations to get online. Since then, the internet industry here has seen as much turbulence and turnover as the country itself.
Many Somalis and people of Somali descent who have been living outside the country as part of the global diaspora community are returning to the troubled state to open new businesses
According to Abdulkadir Hassan Ahmed, general manager of Global Internet Company, Somalia’s largest internet provider, at least 17 internet companies in Somalia have gone under in the past decade.
“It’s a tough job,” Mr Ahmed says. “All the time, companies are coming in and going out.”
Global Internet Company, founded in 2003 by a consortium of Somalia’s leading telecom companies including Hormuud and NationLink, provides dial-up, DSL and some point-to-point wireless.
Yet even Mr Ahmed admits his own company’s connections can be slow and expensive. After nearly 10 years in business, Global Internet is almost profitable, he says, but is more of a loss leader for telecoms.
Unlike Somalia’s thriving telecoms sector, where two decades of lawlessness, lack of regulation, and cut-throat competition for an increasingly mobile market have driven services up and prices to rock bottom (less than one cent per minute), internet in Mogadishu has been archaic.
Dial-up is the cheapest option, at around USD$30 a month per computer, but is painfully slow – less than 56kbs – and highly oversubscribed, according to many.
Direct satellite subscriptions cost as much as USD$3,000 per month for one-megabyte connections, and can be unreliable.
‘Top dollar’
Yet with increased security, things are turning around.
“People used to complain that ‘Mogadishu has no internet’,” says Liban Egal, an American-Somali and founder of Somalia Wireless, Mogadishu’s newest wireless internet provider.
Internet penetration in Somalia still stands at just 1.14% of the population – but as the infrastructure improves that is expected to rise sharply
“It’s not that there wasn’t internet,” Mr Egal explains, “It’s that you couldn’t get what you wanted out of it.”
Somalia Wireless, which launched in April, hopes to find the middle ground in this Mogadishu market, by offering both pooled (shared) and dedicated connections.
“We are trying to build an infrastructure for internet connectivity in Mogadishu,” says Omar Osman, Somalia Wireless’ chief executive, by first “focusing on organisations and institutions that can pay top dollar” and eventually moving down the pyramid to offer a broader base of customers cheaper, faster and better internet.
According to Mr Osman, Somalia Wireless’ hotspots now cover nearly 40% of the city, connecting universities, NGOs, hotels, news agencies and cafes. The company broke even last month.
Internet penetration in Somalia still stands at just 1.14% of the population – on par with Afghanistan – but demand in Mogadishu is growing rapidly.
“Demand is increasing by the day,” says Mr Ahmed. In today’s Mogadishu, he says you need internet “like you need food”.
For the burgeoning private sector and a youth finding themselves free from the social constraints of al-Shabaab, connecting the city is key for growth. Local entrepreneurs are already taking advantage of Mogadishu’s new broadband access.
A report by Somali Telecommunication Association (STA), in 2006, stated that the country had more than 234 cyber cafes, growing at a rate of 15.6% per year. One can only guess the number in Mogadishu today.
In September, brothers Ali Hassan, 20, and Mustafa Yare, 22, opened Kobciye Internet Coffee, a sweltering tin-roofed internet cafe with eight computers, and a deal from Somalia Wireless.
Mustafa Yare & his brother Ali Hassan’s business is doing well – welcoming around 40 customers day
They are part of a shared wireless “pool” with nearby offices, and their bandwidth increases in the afternoon when offices close.
“I wanted a business,” Mr Hassan says, “and this is something that I’m good at, I have skills in computers and IT.”
Youth unemployment stands at 75% in Somalia, so any job is a good job.
The cafe costs around USD$600 (£373) a month to run, with electricity accounting for nearly half of expenditure. Still, the brothers managed to eek out just under USD$1,000 (£624) from their 40 or so daily customers – enough to keep things running for another month.
Most people, Mr Hassan says, “come for Facebook”.
Facebook has taken off in Somalia since Islamic militants al-Shabaab fled the city several months ago, loosening social restrictions and making the streets safer.
New accounts have grown by 50% in the past six months, and there are now more Facebook users than estimated internet users in Somalia, thanks to mobile phones and computer sharing.
Safia Yasin Farah, a young Somali-Canadian who now works with the Centre for Research and Dialogue (CRD) in Mogadishu, says Facebook allows Somalia’s youth to express their opinions freely, without being afraid.
“Many are illiterate, but are actually learning through Facebook,” she adds.
Young ambition
Dr Abdirizak Ahmed Dalmar, president of Benadir University, one of dozens of private universities in the capital, recalls his first day teaching in Mogadishu a few years ago.
“When I finished my first lecture, one student came to me and said ‘can you give me your email’, another one said ‘which website can I go on’.
“And then I saw them playing with their mobiles, Facebook pages, etc. I know these youth have the same aspirations as any youth anywhere in the world. They just need the opportunity.”
With donor funding Benadir University set up its own satellite system, with facilities for video-conferencing with partner universities abroad.
But six months on, that funding has run out, and Benadir cannot pay the $3,000 per month fee. So a deal was struck with Somalia Wireless, who have installed a receiver antenna on their roof.
‘We are ready’
For Mogadishu, wireless broadband is just the beginning.
A few hundred kilometres off the coast three fibre optic cables, already fuelling Kenya’s tech boom, lie waiting to be connected.
But security has been an enormous challenge. With pirates still controlling the seas, no one has been willing to cover the cost of insurance to bring the cables to Mogadishu.
Many of Somalia’s telecom companies are hedging their bets on the future of fibre in Mogadishu.
“In the next six months, we’ll start building the local loop for fibre,” says Mr Egal. According to him, it will cost around USD$1,500 (£936) per kilometre in Mogadishu, an investment he’s willing to make.
Mr Ahmed, of Global Internet, says his company’s involvement in fibre depends on how the government regulates it.
“If there’s room for private sector,” he says, “we are ready.”
Yet it is a risky investment.
Somalia’s first real government in 22 years is now being tested, and though Mogadishu’s long-time residents and returning members of the Somali diaspora alike are incredibly optimistic, the city has virtually no infrastructure, and still very little regulation.
Even without government support, however, Somali innovation, like an espresso maker designed to foil the city’s power outages, will help the city lurch forward.
“The more peace we get”, Somalia Wireless’s Omar Osman explains, “The bigger and more advanced technology we can offer to our people.”
And high-speed internet, even more than espresso, will help stimulate Mogadishu’s recovery.
Nairobi- Somali pirates are still holding 11 foreign vessels for ransom with 167 crew members as hostages as of Sep 30 even as the number of ships signaling attacks by Somali pirates has fallen to its lowest since 2009, a global maritime organization said Monday.
A report from the International Chamber of Commerce, International Maritime Bureau (IMB) released Monday said 21 kidnapped crew members are being held on land and more than 20 hostages have now been held for over 30 months, reported Xinhua.
“It’s good news that hijackings are down, but there can be no room for complacency: these waters are still extremely high-risk and the naval presence must be maintained,” said IMB director, Captain Pottengal Mukundan, in a statement sent to Xinhua.
Demanding millions of dollars in ransom for captured ships and their crews, Somali pirates had late last year intensified operations not just off their own coastline, but further afield in the Red Sea, particularly during the monsoon season in the wider Indian Ocean.
Tankers carrying Middle East oil through the Suez Canal must pass first through the Gulf of Aden. According to maritime officials, about four percent of the world’s daily oil supply is shipped through the gulf.
The attacks are being carried out by increasingly well-coordinated Somali gangs armed with automatic weapons and rocket-propelled grenades, maritime officials said.
The drop in Somali piracy has brought global figures for piracy and armed robbery at sea down to 233 incidents this year — the lowest third quarter total since 2008, according to IMB.
According to IMB, that has monitored world piracy since 1991, in the first nine months of 2012, there were 70 Somali attacks compared with 199 for the corresponding period in 2011.
“And from July to September, just one ship reported an attempted attack by Somali pirates, compared with 36 incidents in the same three months last year,” the report showed.
IMB said policing and interventions by international navies are deterring pirates, along with ships’ employment of best management practices including the use of armed guards and other onboard security measures.
“We welcome the successful robust targeting of Pirate Action Groups by international navies in the high risk waters off Somalia, ensuring these criminals are removed before they can threaten ships,” said Mukundan.
He however warned seafarers to remain vigilant in the high-risk waters around Somalia, the Gulf of Aden and the Red Sea. Meanwhile, violent attacks and hijackings are spreading in the Gulf of Guinea.
Worldwide this year, pirates have killed at least six crew and taken 448 seafarers hostage. The IMB Piracy Reporting Centre recorded that 125 vessels were boarded, 24 hijacked and 26 fired upon. In addition, 58 attempted attacks were reported.
MOGADISHU — The Somali Football federation officials asked the African Union peacekeepers in Somalia (AMISOM) to vacate the country’s largest football facility Stadium Mogadishu during an official visit to the site on Monday.
Somali Football Federation president Ali Said Guled Rooble and Secretary General Abdi Qani Said Arab held a lengthy meeting with the commander of AU peacekeepers stationed at Stadium Mogadishu Captain Angua and other military officials during which they discussed on the possibility of AU troops to withdraw from the facility.
“Today we are at stadium Mogadishu on an official visit which has two main objectives, one was to assess and know the real situation of the stadium and the other was to ask the African Union peacekeepers to vacate from the stadium so that we can host the next edition of regional football tournament for peace and development here by December this year” Somali Football Federation Secretary General Abdi Qani Said Arab told the media during the visit.
“In December 2010 we held the first edition of regional football tournament in more than 20 years and that tournament had yielded positive results in terms of disarming child soldiers, creating friendship among people and spreading football throughout the country” the secretary General said adding that the tournament also helped people who lived in regions controlled by hostile warlords or opposing Islamist groups get a chance to cross from region to region.
The Somali Football Federation officials demanded the AMISOM officials in the meeting to vacate the facility and help the SFF accomplish its duties at the stadium in a bid to help the football-crazy Somali people get a chance to come and watch matches there after many years of absence.
Secretary General Abdi Qani Said Arab told the media that at the end of the lengthy meeting Captain Angua who commands the AU troops at Stadium Mogadishu told them they can pay visit to the facility any time they need, but told they cannot hold any football competitions there.
“This is time to get the Somali soccer facilities back to the SFF hands, because our football is now recovering from years of conflicts and all soccer facilities must get back to our hands” SFF secretary General Abdi Qani Said Arab told the media
“We are really very happy with your arrival here at Stadium Mogadishu, but what I can tell you is that the stadium cannot host any competitions at the present moment because it is currently a military ground and our withdrawal from here depends on the Somali government and the top AMISOM commander’s acceptance—I cannot say about any withdrawals now” Captain Angua told the visiting Somali Football Federation officials.
The president of Somali Football Federation Ali Said Guled Roble who talked to the media during the visit thanked the AU troops for the high level reception. The president said that his federation intends to host the country’s regional football tourney for peace and development by December this year.
Stadium Mogadishu was built for Somalia by Chinese government in 1978 and one time it was the largest and the most beautiful facility in Africa and the Arab world. It hosted many international competitions including All Arab games, All African games, the CECAFA tournament and many others.
For the past 22 years of lack of a functioning government in Somalia, stadium Mogadishu has experienced the most difficult times yet and it several times changed into military compound for foreign troops in Somalia.
In 1993 the facility was occupied by the US peacekeepers who operated in Somalia early 1990s.
In January 2007 Stadium Mogadishu fell into the hands of Ethiopian forces who were based there until they withdrew from Somalia early 2009. It then fell into the hands of notorious Al-shabaab fighters who used it as a training base before they were forced out of capital by Somali government forces and AU troops in August 2011. Since last year stadium Mogadishu has been house to thousands of African Union peacekeepers helping the fragile Somali government.
MOGADISHU — Somalia’s Banadir State government on Tuesday unveiled plans to renovate one of East Africa’s largest open air markets after two decades of closure.
Mohamed Yusuf Osman, Spokesman of Banadir government, told local media in the Somali capital, Mogadishu, that plans to rebuild the Hamarweyne Market were well underway.
Mr. Osman further revealed that a lottery for the allotment of some thousands of plots has been postponed until the 25th of this month. He urged applications to bring their documents with them on next Thursday when the lottery will be drawn in City Plaza Hotel. He blamed the delay on technical issues but promised to resolve it.
All applications are believed to have deposited undisclosed amount of money in the prime location.
The market was constructed by Somalia’s last central government under General Mohamed Siad Barre in 1981 and was one of the largest open air markets in East Africa.
Once reopened the market will be able to supply goods to as far as landlocked Burundi and Rwanda.
