Somalia

4-06-2008 -- Geneva (ICRC) - The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) is significantly stepping up its humanitarian relief work in Somalia to respond to the deepening crisis there.

Hundreds of thousands of Somalis face life-threatening food and water shortages due to the escalating armed conflict and the effects of the recent severe drought in central Somalia.

Somalia, April 2008: Photo by Feinstein International Center (CC)

High inflation and the worldwide rise in commodity prices, especially for key imports such as food and fuel, are aggravating the situation.    » read more »

21 April 2008 -- A Somali human rights group says two days of fighting in the capital, Mogadishu, has killed 81 people.

The Elman Human Rights organization says another 119 people were wounded in fighting Saturday and Sunday between Islamist insurgents and Ethiopian troops.

Map of Somalia: Map courtesy CIA World Factbook

The chairman of the rights group, Sudan Ali Ahmed condemned the use of artillery shells in residential areas of Mogadishu.

There was no independent verification of the death toll, but residents had reported escalating clashes since Saturday. Witnesses say they have seen scores of bodies in the streets of Mogadishu.    » read more »

07 April 2008 --Failed and weak states are unable for various reasons to provide security and other basic services for their citizens. The Bush administration and a growing number of foreign policy experts say failed states pose a threat to world peace and security. But there are critics who argue that intervening in a failed state can do more harm than good.

Gul Khan was just a boy when his family left its village near Jalalabad to escape the war in Afghanistan. For more than 30 years, he lived in Pakistan because he says it was too dangerous to return. Today he is coming home.

"I am asking my brothers and villagers to come back to this village and this lovely country. If they come back, we can rebuild," he said.    » read more »

28 March 2008 -- Somali officials say a U.S. military aircraft has crashed in a coastal area south of the capital, Mogadishu.

Local government officials say the unmanned plane crashed Friday in the Lower Shabelle region, near the town of Marka. Witnesses say the aircraft came from the direction of the ocean.

Security forces have taken possession of the aircraft, which is equipped with video and data devices.

It is not clear what caused the crash.

Unmanned drones often fly over Somalia gathering information on possible terrorist targets for the U.S. military.

Earlier this month, U.S. planes carried out an air raid on the southern Somali town of Dobley, where the U.S. said al-Qaida members were hiding.    » read more »

Washington, D.C. -- November 15, 2007 -- The closure of three independent radio stations by the Somali Transitional Federal Government (TFG) earlier this week has left war-torn Mogadishu virtually devoid of reliable media outlets as the situation in Somalia becomes increasingly desperate, Freedom House said today.

The station closures coincide with the arrests of human rights activists Ali Farah Mohammed and Amir Hashi Ibrahim of the Center for Peace and Democracy (CPD), a human rights organization in Mogadishu that was also temporarily closed earlier this week.    » read more »

13 November 2007 -- Government authorities in Somalia on Tuesday ordered two more radio stations off the air, a day after shutting the popular Radio Shabelle station. The closures follow a surge in violence in Mogadishu as Ethiopian troops backing the government battle Islamist-led insurgents.

The closure of Radio Simba and Radio Banadir on Tuesday, and of Radio Shabelle a day earlier, has prompted outcries from local and international press groups.    » read more »

13 November 2007 -- The former foreign minister of Somalia who is now minister of education says the violence in Mogadishu does not reflect the reality in the rest of the country. Ismael Mohamoud Hurreh says the rest of Somalia is moving away from statelessness and chaos toward stability.

From Baidoa, the seat of the transitional federal parliament, Hurreh told VOA transitional government forces have been conducting mopping up operations in Mogadishu in recent days.    » read more »