Somalia, Its Neighbours and Al-Shabaab – The Quest for Sustainable Solutions

In Somalia, the radical Islamist militia, Al-Shabab, that has terrorized much of the country over the past five years, appears to be on the run. They have been forced out of the capital, Mogadishu, and all of the major towns that were once under their control (including Kismayo in the South). But those who believe the Shabaab are finished could find that they are sorely mistaken.

The eradication of Al-Shabaab, although essential to the peace and security of both Somalia and its neighbours, is unlikely to be achieved by military force alone. What is actually required is a coordinated and sustained regional effort to eliminate the underlying causes of the growth of Islamist radicalism among Somali youth including assistance to effectively address the persistent and structural humanitarian crisis affecting most of Somalia.

Key requirements include improved governance, and concerted efforts to rebuild and expand Somali livelihoods, and the country’s economy. Most of the current generation of Somalis have grown up in conditions of conflict, insecurity of livelihood and deprivation. This has tended to make many of them vulnerable to the arguments and promises of the Islamist militants. The new Somali Government must avoid the corruption trap and tendencies towards dividing up the governmental ‘cake’ along clan lines, and focus its efforts on solving the livelihood problems faced by the majority of the country’s population.

The new government must also urgently address humanitarian issues and start the flow of food aid to the areas liberated from Al- Shabaab. The Shabaab alienated large groups of people in southern and central Somalia by allowing them to die of hunger, rather than permit aid organizations to give them food. If the arrival of food aid, and assistance for reconstruction follows quickly in the tracks of the Kenyan and AMISOM forces, that will strengthen the local constituency for the elimination of Al-Shabaab in the country.

Food aid is a necessary but temporary expedient. It helps to keep people alive, while plans to enable them to earn a livelihood are being made. This is an area in which there is a vital role for the international community to play in putting Somalia back on the road to development and self-reliance.

Along with conflict, drought and desertification are key causes of impoverishment and destitution in large areas of Somalia and adjacent regions of Ethiopia and Kenya. With an increasing population, there is more pressure on the land and its limited resources. Drought and desertification disasters are occurring at increasingly shorter intervals, with less opportunity for recovery. Hundreds of thousands of rural households in Somalia and neighbouring regions of Ethiopia and Kenya have lost most of the livestock on which they depend, dropping entire communities into chronic destitution.

Implications for the IGAD region

Regional economic integration could make an important contribution to addressing these shared problems, in the context of the Intergovernmental Authority for Development (IGAD) – the Regional Economic Commission for the Horn of Africa. It provides the institutional framework for regional economic integration, towards increasing prosperity and integration into the global economy.

The countries of the region are bound by history and geography in relationships of interdependence with considerable potential for cooperation for their common development, for example, through transport corridors to seaports, management of shared water resources, and improved energy security.

Much of rural Somalia is gripped in a livelihood crisis with increasingly serious implications for human security. It is a situation that demands substantial investment in the integrated development of the region’s land and water resources and creating sustainable alternative livelihoods. The key requirements for this include improved infrastructure to provide reliable access to transport, water and affordable energy. In particular, the rehabilitation of the country’s internal roads and their interconnection with those of the neighbouring countries could open the way to increased trade, economic growth and poverty reduction.

Similarly, the ongoing oil price crisis makes affordable energy a key problem faced by countries that like Somalia where people largely depend on oil fired electricity generation. But this could be addressed by interconnection with Ethiopia’s electricity grid to enable it to purchase much cheaper hydroelectricity, a solution already agreed by Djibouti, Kenya and Sudan, in the context of the planned East African Power Pool (EAPP).

The EAPP is already on the way to becoming part of a new regional reality, and a key example of regional economic integration. In September 2012 the African Development Bank (AfDB) approved USD348 million in funding for a USD 1.26 billion project for an electricity transmission line connecting Ethiopia and Kenya. This is a key step towards the establishment of the East African Power Pool, which may later be connected to a Southern Africa Power Pool. The project will promote power trade and regional integration. Djibouti is already interconnected with Ethiopia’s power grid and buying Ethiopian hydropower at a fraction of the cost of oil-based power generation. The same could be done for Somalia.

Addressing the basic issues of sustainable rural livelihoods will need to be undertaken through forms of regional economic integration that encourage the cooperative development of the shared water resources of this drought disaster-prone region comprising Somalia, the Ethiopian Somali region (the Ogaden) and northeastern Kenya. These areas are inextricably linked in terms of ethnic ties, economic exchange and inter-dependence, shared natural resources, and the constant cross-border movement of their pastoral populations.

The Way Forward

There is an important opportunity for joint development of the hydroelectric and irrigation potential of the Shabelle and Dawa-Gennale-Juba river basins in the context of infrastructure-led regional economic integration. The cooperative development of the shared water resources of this drought prone region of Somalia, Kenya and Ethiopia offers considerable potential to rehabilitate the livelihoods of their populations and put them on the path to sustainable development and peace.

Multi-purpose dams on the Shabelle and Dawa-Gennale-Juba rivers could contribute to the hydroelectric power needs of the three countries, enhance their irrigation potential, and prevent the recurrent floods that from time to time devastate large areas of the lower Shabelle and Gennale-Juba basins, leading to serious loss of life and property. It would need significant investment, but it would be far cheaper than the costs of chronic conflict and humanitarian disasters and the economic returns would repay the investment.

With a million hectares of irrigable land on the Ethiopian side and hundreds of thousands within Somalia, both countries would benefit from such development. This would enable irrigation-based agriculture, livestock raising, agro-processing, and employment, for those who choose to settle, as well as those who are already settled, but are often affected by recurrent drought, and food insecurity. It would also reduce the chronic poverty and resource competition that are among the major underlying causes of conflict.

The dams to be built in the two main river basins would control the massive periodic floods like those that occurred in the lower Juba valley a decade ago, resulting in the loss of hundreds of thousands of livestock and considerable loss of human life. The regular availability of water would prevent the loss of huge numbers of valuable livestock, and crops to frequent drought disasters. Along with disaster prevention, they would also provide opportunities for hydropower production. The availability of affordable hydropower could provide a key economic missing link, by opening the way to agro-processing, adding value to agricultural and livestock production, providing employment for the population, and reducing poverty. This could also make a major contribution to reduction of resource competition and conflict risk.

As in India and China, labour-intensive light manufacturing has significant potential to put the Horn of Africa on the road to development. Countries like Ethiopia and Somalia have the necessary cheap labour for this, but what they need to make the jump is abundant, affordable and reliable electricity, to enable them to add value to their production, for example, by exporting meat and leather products, rather than livestock on the hoof.

Somalia, once it settles its internal conflicts, will be well-positioned to benefit from regional economic integration. This, of course, will depend to a large degree on the success of the new government, with the assistance of the AU forces in defeating the Al-Shabaab militias, and establishing an acceptable level of governance. If successful, a peaceful Somalia could have the opportunity, based on the shared water resources of the Dawa-Gennale-Juba, and Shabelle river basins, to rebuild its long neglected agricultural and livestock economies.

In the context of IGAD and regional economic integration, a peaceful Somalia, would also be well-positioned to benefit from Ethiopian use of its port facilities, as Ethiopia begins to tap the agricultural and livestock development potential of its Ogaden region. The closest ports to the southeastern Ogaden are those of Mogadishu and Kismayo. This would open the way to a new and more constructive, cooperative and peaceful relationship between the two countries.

This is particularly important in view of the rapid increase in population numbers across much of the area, and the increasing pressure of fast-growing populations on diminishing resources. The more effective and cooperative use of the region’s water resources, could make important contributions to economic development, to the reduction of poverty, periodic food insecurity, hunger and conflict risk.

The potential for irrigated agriculture and livestock-raising could serve as a lifebelt for both farming and pastoral populations dependent on erratic rainfall, in the context of periodic drought and food shortages, and increasing poverty. It would open the way to sustainable rural livelihoods, and to increased opportunities for urban employment and trade, within Somalia, and between Somalia and its neighbours.

In the context of regional economic integration, this would reduce resource competition and accelerate development and livelihood opportunities. It would also reduce conflict risk by providing the populations on both sides of the border with resources and opportunities that they could not afford to jeopardize, or allow to be jeopardized, through conflict.

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BY HUSSEIN MOHAMED

husseinmohamed@journalist.com

 

Kenya in the spotlight over its role in Kismayu’s administration

Kenya could soon find itself on a collision course with Somalia’s newly installed government over reports that Nairobi is influencing the establishment of a local administration in Kismayu, claims the country’s Department of Defence has denied.

A group of Somali Members of Parliament are planning to table a motion in parliament to expel Kenyan forces from Kismayu, Radio Dalsan reported, adding that the MPs felt the Kenya Defence Forces had failed to deal with insecurity in Kismayu and were also allowing the export of charcoal despite a ban by the United Nations.

However, sources in the Somali government told The EastAfrican that the motion was an emotional reaction by individual MPs who still believed Kenya’s intervention was a mistake and amounted to foreign occupation.

Omar Osman, adviser to former prime minister Abdiwelli Mohammed, said the Speaker and the majority of Somalia’s 275 MPs would not allow the motion to be tabled because they thought Kenya was playing a crucial role in maintaining security in Kismayu.

Secondly, Kenya has good relations with the new president, Hassan Sheikh Mohamud, which such a motion could upset.

While talk of Kenya’s intentions to set up a local administration in Jubaland to serve as a buffer zone has been doing the rounds since KDF entered Somalia in October last year, there are now real fears that Nairobi is trying to influence the establishment of the Jubaland administration through the Inter-Governmental Authority for Development (Igad).

However, KDF spokesperson Col Cyrus Oguna said Kenya has neither the capacity nor will to impose a leadership on Jubaland, describing a current initiative as an Igad issue: “The group of 35 people that have been meeting in Nairobi under Igad Initiative for Jubaland were recently moved to Kismayu for local ownership. They have been appointed by various clans to come up with a mechanism for local administration,” said Col Oguna.

Kenya is said to be supporting Sheikh Ahmed Mohamed Islam, popularly known as Sheikh Ahmed Madobe, the leader of the Ras Kamboni militia, who is considered a warlord. Mr Madobe hails from the Ogaden clan, which also has a strong presence in northeastern Kenya.

The fear is that if Kenya helps the Jubaland administration to put up infrastructure and puts the region on the path to economic prosperity, local leaders may be tempted to disown the Somalia government.

According to the former prime minister’s adviser, any attempts by Kenya to influence the establishment of a Jubaland administration could result in a backlash in the form of clan divisions, which would allow Al Shabaab to infiltrate Kismayu.

But the Ministry of Defence spokesperson Bogita Ongeri dismissed the allegations as propaganda “fuelled by those who don’t want to see a stable Somalia.” He maintained that the duty of setting up an administration in Kismayu lay with the Somali government and Kenya was there to simply keep out Al Shabaab and ensure security.

“As a mission, we understand our mandate in Sector 2 entails ensuring security. We are happy that Somalia now has a Cabinet and parliament that can now decide on how to set up local administration in liberated areas,” said Mr Ongeri.

Prior to the fall of Kismayu, concerns were expressed over whether the interests of troop-providing countries could derail the larger objective of stabilising Somalia.

Sources in the Kenya Defence Forces allege that the talk of Kenya setting up a local administration in Kismayu is due to regional rivalry and disparate interests.

Jubaland, also known as Azania, set up an autonomous administration in 2010. Kenya had expressed interest in helping to develop the new regional administration in order to establish a buffer zone between it and the Islamist insurgency in southern Somalia.

However, neighbouring Ethiopia was opposed to the Jubaland initiative and Kenya’s involvement in it, fearing that it would encourage the Somali-inhabited Ogaden region that is seeking to secede.

Then there is the issue of charcoal.

Kenya is accused of allowing the export of charcoal despite the ban by the UN Security Council.

Kenya says the charcoal is not under its mandate. But Somalis argue that Kenya is controlling the port of Kismayu and it is in a position to stop charcoal exports by enforcing the UN resolution.

There is suspicion that some unscrupulous Kenyan businesspeople are colluding with the KDF leadership to export charcoal to the Middle East.
But Col Oguna said that it is the Amisom force commander in Mogadishu who wrote to the force commander in Sector2 asking for a possible partial lifting of the ban.

The letter was referred to the African Union, which in turn referred the issue to the UN Security Council.

Sources in the Kenya military revealed that Kenya is in a moral dilemma, in that charcoal is the main source of livelihood in the town at the moment and if they want to win the hearts and minds of the Kismayu population, it is prudent to allow them to sell their stockpile of charcoal.

by Hussein mohamed

the writer is the editor

Email: husseinmohamed@journalist.com

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Amisom troops on Financial Crises.

Africa Union troops which have launched a major onslaught on al Qaida allied group, Al- Shabaab in Somalia are facing a serious financial crisis that may jeopardize operations to wipe out the militia in the Horn of Africa nation.

AU Deputy chairperson Erastus Mwencha said the AU Mission in Somalia (AMISOM)’s venture into Horn of Africa is an expensive affair and appealed for more international aid to enable the troops complete their mandate of pacifying the country.

Mr Mwencha who was speaking during African Leadership Conference in Kenya’s port city of Mombasa Monday said the pan African body spends about $45 million per month.

“In the last three years we have spent $300 million  to send troops, armored trucks and tanks, backed by helicopters, into Somalia to mutilate terrorism groups operating in the war tone country of Somalia,” he said.

According to AMISOM, Kenya has contributed troops comprising of air force, Navy and Army troops and have concentrated to the pacification efforts in central and lower Juba, part of Somalia also known as sector two.

The other troop contributing nations include Uganda, Burundi, Djibouti and Sierra Leone for the over 17,000 strong force.

Mr Mwencha said the current level of funding was shot enough although the pan African body continues to get support from UN Security Council and European Union and other friendly countries.

Kenya Defense Forces (KDF) formally joined the enlarged AMISOM on June at a ceremony held at the Kenyan Department of Defense headquarters in the capital Nairobi.

During the ceremony, a total of 4,664 Kenyan personnel were integrated into AMISOM, bringing the AU peacekeeping force’s strength to slightly over 17,000 troops out of a total authorized strength of 17,731.

The re-hatting comes in the wake of the latest terrorist attack blamed on Somalia based Al-Shabaab that killed 17 people and injured more than 65 others on Sunday in northern Kenya.

Kenya’s integration into the continental force was officially solemnized through the change from Kenyan flag to the AU flag. Mr Mwencha said the major goal of the AU troops was to flash out al Qaida-affiliated extremists based in Somalia which pose a significant threat not just to Somalia but to other countries in the region, including Kenya.

“We have made significant progress since our incursion in Somalia by cutting Al-Shabaab relief supplies and recaptured key stronghold towns and will not surrender,” said Mr Mwencha.

Kismayu, the strategic hub for Al-Shabaab operations, has been a target for the Kenyan troops, who make up the AU contingent in the south of the country, since they entered Somalia last October.

by: Hussein Mohamed

Email the author: husseinmohamed@journalist.com

 

Two-thirds of bilateral aid to Somalia govt stolen, diverted

Successive Somali governments have not accounted for nearly $238 million, the bulk of which constituted bilateral assistance, according to an audit report made available exclusively.

The report shows that over the period 2000-2011, the first Somali Transitional National Government and the subsequent Transitional Federal Government received bilateral aid totalling $308 million, that was given mainly by Arab countries including Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Libya, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates. (This figure does not include funds that came through the Arab League. It also does not cover multilateral assistance to Somalia, which is managed entirely by the United Nations Development Programme.)

Only $53 million was raised domestically during this period, mainly through the Mogadishu port and airport.

However, successive governments have only been able to account for $124 million — or one-third — of the total bilateral and domestic funds they received.

The author of the report, Abdirazak Fartaag, who was head of Somalia’s Public Finance Unit in prime minister Omar Abdirashid Sharmarke’s office from May 2009 to September 2010, and prime minister Mohamed Abdullahi Farmaajo’s office from December 2010 to May 2011, claims that various Somali administrations misappropriated and mismanaged millions of dollars in donor assistance and domestic revenue by under-reporting the amounts received and by utilising funds on personal and other non-government expenses.

The Public Finance Unit was initiated by prime minister Sharmarke in 2009, in order to enhance the financial reporting of the Transitional Federal Government and to co-ordinate the central bank and the auditor general’s and accountant general’s offices. The unit was disbanded by prime minister Farmaajo in May 2011.

Fartaag’s report (which has not yet been released, but was made available ) comes in the wake of another damning report released by the World Bank in late May, that claims that the TFG did not account for $130 million in revenues and donations it received in 2009 and 2010.

The report’s author, Joakim Gundel, said auditors found that the government had collected at least $94 million in revenue in 2009, but only reported $11 million.

The report states that in 2010, the government collected $70 million in revenues, but reported just $22 million.

A leaked copy of the 2012 report of the Monitoring Group on Somalia and Eritrea — a group mandated by the UN Security Council to monitor arms embargo violations — shows similar gross under-reporting of finances by the Somali government. (The report is expected to be presented to the UN Security Council sometime this month.)

The Group’s own investigations show that an additional $40 million of potential revenue may have gone uncollected or unaccounted for in 2011.

President Sheikh Sharif Ahmed is quoted saying that the money may have never reached Somalia, and was “perhaps in the pockets of other people.”

The report further states that one quarter of the funds that can be accounted for are channelled through the offices of the president, prime minister and speaker of parliament.

In 2011, these three offices spent more than $12.6 million, representing almost 23 per cent of total government expenditure — almost as much as was spent on the TFG security forces ($13.4 million), or the expenditure of all the ministries combined ($15.4 million).

The report further states that the TFG leaders have generally shunned a funding mechanism managed by PricewaterhouseCoopers, that was established with donor support as a confidence-building measure.

It says that the fundamental problem with the Transitional Federal Institutions is that “their leaders have successfully marketed the government’s weakness, fragility and possible collapse as a lure to attract more assistance.”

As a result, “corruption, embezzlement and fraud are no longer symptoms of mismanagement, but have in fact become a system of management.”

Fartaag compares the funds that Somalia’s various administrations and the auditor general’s office reported the country had received and spent between 2000 and 2011 with his own findings, which reveal huge discrepancies between money received and money declared.

From 2000 to 2008, except 2007 when $32 million from Saudi Arabia was recorded by the Office of the Prime Minister, the Somali government did not account for any of the funds it received.

The auditor general’s office, which was established in 2000, only started reporting revenue and expenditure in 2009. There are vast discrepancies between Fartaag’s findings and figures reported by the auditor general’s office.

Fartaag alleges, for instance, that in 2011, more than $122 million of donor support was received by the government, but the auditor general’s office reported only $35 million; $87 million remains unaccounted for.

The World Bank report says that not all revenues are deposited in the Central Bank of Somalia, and that there is a lack of proper accounting of how money is being spent.

The report was released when Somalia’s top leadership and civil society representatives had gathered at the second conference on Somalia in Istanbul.

This led to hasty denials by President Ahmed, who was quoted on the Somali website raxanreeb.com as saying: “It is simple to claim allegations, but you (the World Bank) must make it clear and tangible. Where the money has gone is what we want to know also.”

Stem irregularities

President Ahmed, along with the current Prime Minister Abdiweli Mohamed Ali and former prime minister Abdullahi Farmaajo are contending for the presidential nominations that will take place when a new parliament is constituted in Somalia later this month.

The communiqué emanating from the Istanbul conference, like that of the London conference that preceded it, supported the establishment of a Joint Financial Management Board, comprising donors and the government, to stem irregularities.

The Board, spearheaded by Britain and other European countries, along with the World Bank, aims to improve transparency and accountability in the use of public resources, and ensure that these funds go towards improved security and economic and social development.

Britain’s ambassador to Somalia, Matt Baugh, has stated that the Board will provide a facility whereby the Somali government and its partners can demonstrate that the money it is receiving from a variety of sources is being put to good public use.

However, the current government has resisted the idea of the Board. Former government spokesman Abdirahman Omar Osman Yarisow told the Somali website shabelle.net that the current government had rejected the idea of the board, adding that the government would not allow itself to be financially managed by outsiders, and that this suggestion needed to be revisited.

Fartaag’s report paints a grim picture of Somalia’s financial management systems.

The report shows how large amounts of money intended for economic and social development were personalised by various top government officials, with the Central Bank of Somalia and the Mogadishu port often being used as personal ATM machines.

He says misappropriation of donor funds by senior government officials was made easier by the fact that the biggest Arab donors usually paid their contributions in hard cash to individual politicians, rather than depositing it in national financial institutions.

These politicians, in turn, often deposited a fraction of the donor funds into the Central Bank, and did not account for the rest.

Also, the Mogadishu port is under the control of the president, who can decide how revenue raised from the port is to be allocated.

This has created huge opportunities for corruption. In 2009, for instance, the port generated $24 million, according to Fartaag, but the office of the auditor general only registered $6.2 million of it.

In 2010, the port generated $30 million but only $12 million was reported; of this, more than half went to the Office of the President for expenditures that have yet to be disclosed.

In addition, blurred lines of authority and poor accounting practices have led to situations where decisions regarding how funds are to be spent are often made unilaterally by the president, the prime minister, the speaker and the minister of finance, without the consent of parliament and quite often without informing key ministries.

“This informality in the management of public funds made it easy for past and present political leaders to personalise these funds, and has, unfortunately, become the model for future leaders,” says Fartaag.

“Public funds often bypass financial institutions; even when they go through them, they are manipulated for personal gain.”

Official documents seen by the websites show that one former warlord was paid a whopping $8 million for “reconciliation” in 2007 (during the administration of president Abdullahi Yussuf and prime minister Ali Ghedi), and one MP, who later become a minister, was paid $330,000, also for “reconciliation.” Thousands of dollars were also spent on hiring private jets.

Unequal disbursement

Skewed allocation of funding to some regions at the expense of others was also rampant during this period.

Fartaag found that nearly 14 per cent of Somalia’s budget was allocated to Puntland, compared with 0.13 per cent to Lower Shebelle and 0.07 per cent to Lower Juba, with the Banadir region (where Mogadishu is located) getting less than 2 per cent.

Some regions, such as Galgadud, South Mudug, Hiraan, Bay and Bakol, Gedo and Middle Juba did not receive a single cent, despite being the most conflict-ridden areas in the country.

However, says Fartaag, it’s not clear whether the allocations were actually disbursed to any of the regions, including Puntland.

Fartaag says attempts to bring sanity and accountability into Somalia’s finances have been repeatedly thwarted by successive administrations.

During his tenure in prime ministers Sharmake and Farmaajo’s offices, his attempts to rein in the finances and demand greater transparency led to his eventual (verbal) dismissal.

He says that while corruption was widespread in the Somali administration during his tenure, successive administrations have continued with the trend.

In 2011, when he was still the head of the Public Finance Unit, Fartaag alerted prime minister Farmaajo to gross irregularities, but he was discouraged from investigating them further.

After his dismissal, he continued with his investigations, which were published in the media. The government dismissed them as a smear campaign.

However, Fartaag was vindicated in May by the World Bank, which conducted its own preliminary investigations that also showed inconsistencies and irregularities in the financial affairs of the transitional federal institutions.

Potential to earn money

Fartaag says Somalia’s potential to generate domestic revenue remains underexploited, largely because the economy remains unregulated.

His audit report for 2009/10 showed that Somalia could generate $48 million a year in taxes from the three largest telecommunications providers, whose annual turnover is conservatively estimated to be over $540 million.

Remittances from Somalis abroad — estimated to be around $1.5 billion a year — could generate $45 million, while taxes from the Mogadishu port alone could bring in another $35 million a year.

With more credible financial institutions in place and a better regulatory framework, the government would also be in a better position to earn revenue from other sources, such as VAT, income tax and licence fees, which are currently non-existent.

This could also help make the country less reliant on external assistance, and ensure that revenue collected benefits the people of Somalia.

When asked why he had chosen to release the findings of his audit report now, in light of a new (hopefully, more transparent) government set to be installed in Somalia in August, Fartaag said: “I am trying to show through my audit that every single government that Somalia has had since 2000 has consistently mismanaged public funds.

“If the money that was mismanaged and misappropriated was used to build schools and hospitals and to rehabilitate government buildings, Somalia would not be in its current dire predicament. I did the report because I “I feel that the people of Somalia deserve a better government that uses public funds properly. But in order to do this, Somalia needs the help of the international community; we should not expect the future government to reverse the trend on its own and suddenly become more accountable to its citizens.

“The establishment of the Joint Financial Management Board is therefore a step in the right direction. The politicians who are resisting the Board in the name of sovereignty are only playing to the domestic gallery.”want the personalisation of public funds to stop.

BY: HUSSEIN MOHAMED ISSACK

EMAIL THE AUTHOR: husseinmohamed@journalist.com

 

”THE WAR WITHIN, THE INNOCENCE CIVILIANS”

In the northeastern border of Kenya, roughly 100 km from Somalia, is Dadaab, the biggest refugee camp in the world. The camp was created twenty years ago, when a violent civil war broke out in Somalia, forcing hundreds of thousands of people to flee towards neighboring countries.

Initially, it was created to give refuge to 90,000 people. Today, it hosts more than 465,000 people within the three locations that compose it (Ifo, Hagadera and Dagahaley), and more than 40,000 people live in the outskirts of these.  Dadaab still receives thousands of refugees daily. The overcrowded camps leave no option but for these new arrivals to camp in the outskirts, where they find themselves exposed to violence and have limited access to water, sanitation and other basic health services.

 

In Somalia, the end of violence cannot be foreseen. Furthermore, the drought that threatens millions of people in this area has been categorized as the worst in the last sixty years. Due to the violence and the prolonged drought, almost 1 million people have been displaced, seeking refuge in countries such as Kenya and Ethiopia. They flee hunger and violence, with the hope of finding the possibility of a future. Some die in the journey, while others reach Dadaab ready to face a new life dependent entirely on humanitarian aid. Somalis, generally know as a proud, independent and self-sufficient people, now can’t survive without the solidarity of their neighboring countries and the support of nations across the world.

 

Even if the state of emergency is Dadaab was declared in last year, it’s important to remember that there are people that have been living there since 1991. Many have built their lives there, completing their education, marrying and having children within the confines of the camp. Some receive temporary permissions to further their education in other cities in Kenya, but ultimately they must return. Dadaab functions much like a city, with film  and theater programs, extra-curricular activities for children, and practical training for adults. It is a place that has existed for a  long time, and its residents plan for a future- a future without war in Somalia.

YOUTH OBSTICALES:

The Kenyan government blames the violence on al Qaeda-linked militants in Somalia and sympathisers inside Kenya. The Kenyan police have arrested Somali refugees in connection with the incidents, alleging that they are using Dadaab to store explosive materials and plan attacks.

23 year old   identified him as Mohamed and student at IFO secondary school he traveled to kismayu last month in order to see his family as excursion he told me about his journey .

“ I was traveling back to Somalia to visit my family when I left IFO here, I was on my way to kismayu as to see my family there, I find some friends of mine they were traveling too to kismayu, when we reach  dhobley three men came to us they asked about us, where we are from and where we are going they told us to come down, and we obeyed their order, they took  us to the police station, they accused us  Alshabab group. I astonished and got shock, they told us  be in jail until further investigations,

We spent in the jail three consequence days,  the third day they said we don’t have evidence,  that you are alshabab so you can go, we don’t have any money even they took all our money in  everybody’s pocket , whatever the case we got money from our families, then we started our journey to kismayu again when we are about  5kms to kismayu town I breath, and said finally we reach home, after a while the vehicle stopped at a  road block, an officers of alshabab talk to all passengers and ordered to come down and we did again,  similarly they catch I and another new man they said you two keep aside you were suspected you are spy from Kenya,  another shock again, they took us to the down-town of their police post,

I slept that night there I talk to my family, I told them that Iam in the hands of alshabab, the day after that night my family came to me in the jail, when they identified my parents they released me , they said  we arrested him in our operation of last night”

when we are in kenya we are accused by alshabab and when we go back there (somalia) the insurgent-group of alshabab  they accuse us kenya spy, mohamed gestured

There is many untold stories, Mohamed added.

 

That frustration is naturally going to increase the potential for them being recruited into armed groups or militias.

Many of the refugees in Dadaab are children and young people, who have little hope of leaving to return to Somalia or be resettled overseas, pursuing higher education or getting a job.

“ they recruit the children’s, I escaped last year alshabab  I was in bu,aale with my mother with six young children, Iam the first born of my family and Iam 19 years old, they told me to be part of them ‘’mujahid” an armed officer” now my mother needs me, and I can’t go there because of them, there is some similar friends of  mine they already joined them, they contact me several times and black-mail, my father died five years ago with clan-clashes. Says  Abdisamad sugule,

 

HUMANTARIAN DRUM-BEATS:

 

The group of agencies also warned that, one year after famine was declared in Somalia, they face a $25 million funding shortfall for their operations over the next ninth months, putting at least 200,000 refugees at risk.

 

“As the world’s attention has shifted to pressing problems in other countries, cuts in humanitarian funding are threatening the health, security and livelihoods of refugee populations in Dadaab,” the agencies – which include Oxfam, Save the Children, CARE and the Danish Refugee Council – said in a statement.

Money for vital services is set to run out in the next two to three months, they said. Some 130,000 refugees are living in temporary tents that need replacing with new shelters, but there aren’t enough funds to do so.

From September, 50,000 refugees will be without water and sanitation services, exposing them to the risk of cholera.

Health facilities are seriously overstretched, with 78,000 people sharing two health units in the Hagadera section of the camp, four times the minimum emergency standard of one unit per 10,000 people.

BY: HUSSEIN MOHAMED

email the author: husseinmohamed@journalist.com

 

AID WORKERS UNDER THE SHADOW OF THE IDPs,

The children sit in a makeshift tent made from twigs, tattered sacks and worn out polythene bags, that lets in rays of the scorching sun, and water when it rains.

Their mother left early in the morning to beg for food. Al-Shabaab militants killed their father at a food distribution centre when the militiamen thought the rations would get finished before they got their share.

“Move. You have stayed here for too long,” an armed African Union peacekeeper says. It’s an order to stop offering the few remaining biscuits to hungry children and move away from them, for the sake of our security.

“This is a danger zone. You can’t go near the tents alone. You can’t get close to the displaced person. You have to be near an armed soldier if on foot. And always be close to the armoured vehicles and the rest of the group,” the soldier further warned, with his gun ready for any eventuality.

Like other Somalis, they suffer and live in danger because of the war on Al Shabaab by African Union Mission in Somalia (Amisom) forces and allied fighters. A number of attacks have occasionally killed women and children and a number of youth who never dreamt of taking up arms.

Satellite images have captured more than 500 internally displaced persons (IDPs) settlements in areas surrounding Somalia’s capital city Mogadishu alone.  Two decades of war have seen children born and become adults in makeshift camps.

In this insecure country, which celebrated its 52nd independence day on July 1, rarely do humanitarian workers stay at an IDP settlement camp for more than 45 minutes. Not even when speaking to young children who appear harmless..

“Even spending the 45 minutes can be too risky,” Kilian Kleinschmidt, the UN’s deputy humanitarian co-ordinator in Somalia, and a veteran of crisis who helped set up the world’s largest refugee camp Daadab in Kenya, says.

For over two decades, Somalia has suffered state collapse, violent lawlessness and warlordism, internal displacement and refugee flows, that has resulted in what the UN describes as one of the ultimate “hardship spots” in the world.

It’s a case of a human tragedy. Nobody knows the actual figures.

Since the United Nations came back to Somalia last year, UN officials have been struggling to give hope to Somalia’s displaced people.

During the World Refugee Day on June 20, United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) said it was difficult to put exact figures to the number of internally displaced people inside Somalia. The UN relief agency estimates there are about 1.35 million displaced people inside Somalia.

“The displaced persons move frequently and satellite images pick up only temporary, makeshift shelters that remain empty most of the time, except when there is an aid distribution,” the UNHCR representative for Somalia, Bruno Geddo, told journalists in Nairobi.

Mr Kleinschmidt describes Somalia as the “most complicated, logistically difficult and most dangerous place in the world to offer humanitarian assistance today,” while the UNHCR terms it as “the heart of one of the worst humanitarian crises in the world”.

Recently, the horn of Africa country, believed to have some of the most beautiful beaches in Africa, was ranked first in the Failed States Index which uses factors such as demographic pressures, presence of internally displaced persons and refugees, group grievance, uneven development and respect for human rights. It was the fifth consecutive year that Somalia was topping that list.

In its photo essay Postcards From Hell 2012, What does living in a failed state look like?, Foreign Policy Magazine painted a grim picture of the country; “Last year, one of the deadliest droughts in decades resulted in a famine that killed tens of thousands of people and displaced hundreds of thousands in the country, where 16 per cent of the population was internally displaced in 2011 — the highest rate worldwide.”

“We want help. We have lost our livelihoods. People are sitting idle, there is no place for them to work and most of us have no skills,” Halima Mohammed, a mother of seven whose husband was killed by a mortar in Bakara market two years ago, pleads.

The camps, with their domed shelters made of rags and sticks, are now surrounded by stagnant water. There is a heavy stench of human waste and there are rising cases of sexual violence.  Survivors sit among the clouds of flies.

“It’s not just here. All the 6,000 toilets constructed to assist the displaced people are now full. We are more afraid about what happens next since Mogadishu has no sewerage disposal system,” says Hibaaq Ahmed, the committee chairperson of Sonak IDP camp.

The water is contaminated, keeping Mogadishu and its environs permanently alert over cholera outbreaks.

Families scoop a few mouthfuls of water to drink from muddy pools. Everyone asks when the next food rations will arrive. And when they arrive, they wonder how long they will last.

Most of Somalia is a desert of rock, stone and sand, with some mountains. A scorching sun allows almost nothing to grow for most of the year, except vicious thorn scrub and cactus.

In addition, years of fighting in a country with masses of weapons supplied by the world’s superpowers have forced millions of Somalis to either flee to exile, or take their chances in its sprawling IDP camps.

The IDP camps are very similar. You come across thousands of people waiting for help from international aid workers and UN agencies.

Somalia is still extremely dangerous for foreigners, especially humanitarian workers. According to the Aid Worker Security Database accessed on February 19, 2012, between 2000 and 2011, 260 aid workers were killed. The worst year was in 2008, when 87 foreign workers were either gunned down or killed by explosives.

In January, US Navy SEALs rescued an American aid worker and her Danish colleague after three months of captivity in central Somalia. Last December, a disgruntled member of Médecins sans Frontières shot and killed two of his colleagues in Mogadishu.

Very few foreign aid workers spend significant time in Somalia’s capital city, Mogadishu. Areas in the south have remained inaccessible for several years.

On November 28, Al Shabaab banned 16 aid agencies, among then UNICEF and WHO, from its areas of control in southern and central Somalia, regions where drought and famine were most acute, accusing them of financing, aiding, and abetting subversive groups seeking to destroy the Islamic penal system.

In Xayo town, a family surrounded by fields of green watches the planting season pass them by. “We have nothing to plant. Even when we plant, the Al Shabaab will say that we have received planting material from groups (international aid organisations) that they have banned and destroy the food. We depend on handouts,” says Ahmed Yusuf.

We met Sofia Agane standing outside her makeshift hut on the outskirts of Afmadow town, waiting for help. “The locals have no power to defend themselves. You can plant and then the Al Shabaab will come and take away all the crops,” she said.

With the Kenyan Defence Forces’ (KDF) incursion into Somalia in October last year, only a few officers have been allowed into the area.
“These people needed any kind of help. We started by offering them food, water and medicine,” Colonel Cyrus Oguna, the KDF spokesperson, recalls.

Ahmed Ali, a clan elder from southern Somalia, says only places like Kismayu, Somalia’s most urbanised town in the south, is served by three international non-governmental organisations (NGOs). “But they all use local operators,” he clarifies.

In Afmadow, Al Shabaab militia destroyed books, chalk and other materials donated by UNICEF, before fleeing the town.

Athman Seif, an official of the Islamic Relief Organisation, says UN agencies face high risks. “We keep away from where they eat and visit so as to minimise the chances of being attacked,” Mr Seif says.

Although they remain high-value targets of elimination by Al Shabaab militants, the return of the UN to the country last year, after UN agencies and peacekeepers were kicked out in the early 1990s, is creating new hope.

At various IDP camps, the eyes of children are glowing with anticipation and joy, and those of the adults, often characterised by brutality, reflect a glimpse of a new future.

“It is still a complex problem, but this is a new chance for us to make a difference. Even when we get to save a single life, it’s very important for us in Somalia,” Kleinschmidt says as he points at a severely malnourished diabetic woman they rescued from an IDP camp, now recovering at the Egyptian-run Zam Zam hospital.

“The UN is now assisting in coordinating humanitarian assistance. This is something we thought would take several years, but through their help we are getting a more organised effort,” Amina Hosi, the executive director of Save Somali Women and Children, told me

Some efforts are already bearing fruit. The Somali Transitional Federal Government (TFG) has allocated four-square kilometres of land just outside Mogadishu to build a camp for displaced persons, the first one in the country, which is expected to meet UN standards.

“The problem we have is that the site like many others is flooded with land mines and other unexploded ordinance. The UN mine action service is working with Amisom and TFG to clean up the place,” Mr Kleinschmidt explains.

He estimates that construction at the site will start in the next three or four months.

HUSSEIN MOHAMED write’s http://www.somaliareport.com/index.php/subcategory/47//Refugees////7

EMAIL the author husseinmohamed@journalist.com

 

Getting Resettled, or living more Comfortably in The Camps.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dadaab, Kenya - In the northeastern border of Kenya, roughly 100 km from Somalia, is Dadaab, the biggest refugee camp in the world. The camp was created twenty years ago, when a violent civil war broke out in Somalia, forcing hundreds of thousands of people to flee towards neighboring countries. Initially, it was created to give refuge to 90,000 people. Today, it hosts over 350,000 people within the three locations that compose it (Ifo, Hagadera and Dagahaley), and more than 40,000 people live in the outskirts of these. Even though the border between Somalia and Kenya was closed in 2007, Dadaab still receives thousands of refugees daily. The overcrowded camps leave no option but for these new arrivals to camp in the outskirts, where they find themselves exposed to violence and have limited access to water, sanitation and other basic health services.

In Somalia, the end of violence cannot be foreseen. Furthermore, the drought that threatens millions of people in this area has been categorized as the worst in the last sixty years. Due to the violence and the prolonged drought, almost 1 million people have been displaced, seeking refuge in countries such as Kenya and Ethiopia. They flee hunger and violence, with the hope of finding the possibility of a future. Some die in the journey, while others reach Dadaab ready to face a new life dependent entirely on humanitarian aid. Somalis, generally know as a proud, independent and self-sufficient people, now can’t survive without the solidarity of their neighboring countries and the support of nations across the world.Even if the state of emergency is Dadaab was declared in mid-2011, it’s important to remember that there are people that have been living there since 1991. Many have built their lives there, completing their education, marrying and having children within the confines of the camp. Some receive temporary permissions to further their education in other cities in Kenya, but ultimately they must return. Dadaab functions much like a city, with film  and theater programs, extra-curricular activities for children, and practical training for adults. It is a place that has existed for a  long time, and its residents plan for a future- a future without war in Somalia, getting resettled, or living more comfortably in the camps.

BY: HUSSEIN MOHAMED