Somali Internally DIsplaced Persons hold a demnstration outside the capital of Mogadishu.
Originally uploaded by Pan-African News Wire File Photos
Posted: 12/29/2009 5:09:00 PM
Shabelle: SOMALIA
AFGOI ( Sh. M. Network ) – Large demonstrations organized by the Somali Internally Displaced People (IDPs) and against the water shortage has been made between Mogadishu and Afgoi town in Lower Shabelle region, witnesses and officials said on Tuesday.
Most of the people were the Somali displaced people and were marching a long Afgoi corridor especially between the Lafole and Hawo Abdi villages, out of the Somali capital.
Hundreds of the displaced people, most of them from Mogadishu could be seen in the large demonstrations today and they were complaining about a bitter water shortage that faced all the Internally Displaced Peoples in the area.
MSF agency, one of the charity organizations operating between both towns Mogadishu and Afgoi and used to contribute water to the displaced people had formally informed them recently that it totally halted providing water to those people from 1st January 2010.
The agency said in a statement recently that it will not give any water to the IDPs.
Hundreds of the demonstrators had gathered at a square, out of Hawo Abdi village where the demonstrations continued complaining about the lack of water facing the displaced people in the area by reiterating their call about MSF to continue providing water to the feeble people.
The demonstrators lastly requested from the charity agency of MSF to give them water which the people are complaining about pointing out that they are currently encountering serious difficulties of water shortage.
The large demonstrations of the Somali Internally displaced comes as most of the displaced people who left from the Somali capital Mogadishu due to daily clashes did not get any aid support about 3 months in this year 2009.
By: Hassan Osman Abdi
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Hizbul Islam conducts operations in southern Somalia
Posted: 12/26/2009 9:51:00 AM
Shabelle: SOMALIA
LUQ (Sh. M. Network) – Islamist fighters of Hizbul Islam have conducted operations between Luq and Dolow towns in Southern Somalia capturing several people during their operations, official told Shabelle radio on Saturday.
Sheik Hassan Al-iraqi, the security secretary of Hizbul Islam in Luq town explained more about the operations of their forces between both Luq and Dolow in Gedo region saying that the detained people included the village commissioner of Gedweyne his security men.
Sheik Hassan said that the commissioner and his staff were released from the jail immediately after a dialogue between the two sides.
The official said their main aim was to establish security on the street that connects between the Luq and Dolow where there had been insecurity recently. The group warned the bandits, who often commit crimes against the people traveling on that road, to move away from the area or suffer the consequences.
Asked about the reason the commissioner of Gedweyn arrested, Sheik Al-iraqi told Shabelle radio that they had suspected him of working with the transitional government and Ethiopian officials in Dolow, confirming that he was lately released from the jail.
The operations of Hizbul Islam organization comes at a time when gunmen, who recently took up positions between Dolow and Luq towns, who were allegedly committing banditry creating insecurity in the region of southern Somalia.
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Heavy fighting breaks out in out of Beledweyn town
Posted: 12/29/2009 3:56:00 PM
Shabelle: SOMALIA
BALADWEYN (Sh. M. Network ) – Heavy fighting between the Islamist forces of Hizbul Islam and other armed forces has broken out in out of Beledweyn town in Hiran region, witnesses and officials told Shabelle radio on Tuesday.
Reports from the town say that the clashes between the two sides started at Hajub valley about 7 kilometers east of Beledweyn town on Tuesday morning as an armed group attacked bases of the Hizbul Islam forces in the outskirts of the town.
Both sides exchanged heavy weapon during the war, but the real casualties of the war is unclear so far.
Mo’allin Farah Da’ud, the security secretary of Hizbul Islam in Hiran region told reporters that their military bases were attacked by what he called armed gunmen adding that the fighting continued for a while.
“Now, we are making search operations in the mountainous areas around Beledweyn town in Hiran region. The side of Bari in the town. We shall pursue those groups quickly. We shall attack where they were from in the region,” said Mo’allin Farah
How ever, today’s fighting is the third war with in three days that starts around Beledweyne town in central Somalia.
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Somalia: Civilians welcome Ethiopian troop withdrawal
MOGADISHU ( Mareeg ) –Somali people in Kalaber junction in central Somalia have welcomed Ethiopian troop withdrawal from the strategic intersection and also in Balanbal district in Galgadud region , witnesses said on Tuesday.
More Ethiopian troops who were in Balanbal and Kalaber junction in both Hiraan and Galgudud regions in central Somali left from their positions in the area fortnight and returned to where they were from earlier.
Residents around where the Ethiopians troops vacated told reporters that they soldier were present there about two weeks saying that they had had a difficult for their presence in those places expressing happiness about their leaving from the area.
The people around Kalabeyr and Balanbal had fears of possible fighting between the Islamist fighters and Ethiopian troops since their presence in both Hiraan and Galgudud regions.
Reports from Beledweyn town say that some of the Transitional Federal Government troops could be seen at Kalabey while the Ethiopians headed to Fer-fer, a town in the Somali region under the Ethiopian control.
The withdrawal of the Ethiopian troops came as fighting between Ahlu Sunna Walajama’a and Hizbul Islam occurred.
Mareeg Online
Tuesday, December 29, 2009
Eritrean Opposition Groups Threatens to Attack Troops
ADDIS ABABA (AFP) — An Eritrean opposition group told AFP on Tuesday it was "prepared to launch attacks" on government troops after the United Nations last week imposed tough sanctions on Asmara.
"This is a good opportunity for us," Cornelios Osman, head of the Democratic Movement for the Liberation of the Eritrean Kunama (DMLEK) said in a phone interview.
"We are preparing our military forces to launch more attacks," he added. "We are inside Eritrea and will hit selected targets and institutions."
The UN Security Council last week voted for an arms embargo and targeted sanctions against Eritrea, which has been accused of trying to destablise the Western-backed government in neighbouring Somalia.
Asmara condemned the decision as "a shameful day" for the United Nations.
But Cornelios said the travel ban imposed on senior officials would "further isolate the regime" and "deter it from receiving the hundreds of millions of dollars it gets" annually from the Eritrean diaspora.
DMLEK is a member of the Ethiopia based coalition Eritrean Democratic Alliance, of which two other groups have also waged a nascent armed struggle often staging hit-and-run attacks.
Eritrean President Issaias Afeworki has often dismissed his country's foreign-based opposition as "puppets" linked with arch-foe Ethiopia, with whom Eritrea recently fought a border war.
Some 80,000 people died in a 1998-2000 border conflict between the two neighbours, many in brutal World War I style trench warfare.
A UN-backed boundary commission charged with demarcating the border handed the disputed town of Badme to Eritrea but Ethiopia has refused to implement the ruling so far.
Source: AFP
SOMALIA: Hawa Siyaad, "They killed my hope"
MOGADISHU, 28 December 2009 (IRIN) - Twenty-three people were killed in Mogadishu on 3 December 2009 when a blast ripped through a graduation ceremony. Among the dead was a 24-year-old final year medical student whose mother, Hawa Siyaad, spoke to IRIN about that fateful day.
“My son asked me not to be late so I was one of the first to arrive. I closed my business [selling fuel] to be there. I was happy because I knew that my boy, Mohamed, would be going through the same ceremony next year. As the ceremony was in progress a huge explosion ripped through the hotel.
“All of a sudden, everything was in darkness. For what seemed like a long time I could not see or hear anything. I was dazed but everyone around me was scrambling to get away. I followed the crowd and then realized that my son was at the front. I started looking for him. There were dead and injured people everywhere. I finally found my son underneath an injured person. At first I thought he was also injured but quickly realized that he was dead.
“I tried to pick him up but could not. I just sat there next to him until someone helped me carry his body. You cannot imagine the pain of holding your oldest child, dead. That day they broke my heart and took away my hope and dreams.
"I worked so hard to put him through university. Every day, no matter how difficult - even with bullets flying around - I sat and sold fuel to make sure he got an education. He was our future and our hope. That day they killed my hope and the future of our family… He and his friends did not deserve to die like that before they had even begun their lives.
“I know of no religion - not mine or anyone else's - that condones what they [the perpetrators] did. I will never forget or forgive what they have done to us.”
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