Somalia
31 very interesting things. 4: Cardiff’s Somali Community
The Guardian put together a great interactive map of Britain a couple of years ago showing the location of different ethnic minorities. I’d love to know why Greeks were attracted to Guildford. The Irish in Cheltenham is pretty obvious. And then there’s the Somalis in Cardiff. They first arrived there to work on the docks […]
How to Tell Your Islamist from Your Warlord
Somalia’s problems are deep-seated and complex. Reporting on its conflicts, rivalries and politics is difficult. There are many pitfalls for the unwary reporter. The death of Aden Hashi Ayro a couple of weeks ago showed how easy it was for even illustrious names to slip up (you know who you are), confusing militia leaders for […]
Sunday Times article
You can read my article in yesterday’s Sunday Times here, although I’m not especially happy about parts of how it was edited. Can’t write too much about it now, but let me just say that the phrase, “with hatred in their hearts,” from the first paragraph is not mine.
David Axe joins Frontline
David Axe joins the From the Frontline blog ranks this week. David is the author of Army 101 and War Fix. He also writes for the Wired Magazine Danger Room blog, keeps a personal blog called War is boring and uploads his cartoons to Flickr. Staying with the ‘boring’ theme, David has called his Frontline […]
Leaving Nairobi…but going elsewhere
Have decided to cancel my second trip to Somalia as the situation there has become too difficult to work. About 3 days ago the senior Shabab spokesman said that their group would start specifically targetting foreigners (i.e. white guys, not Ethiopians) in town, and I didn’t really fancy shelling out several thousand US dollars to […]
Group Therapy
Who’d want to be an international aid worker trying to bring peace and stability to Somalia? Chatting to one last night, she told me how meetings on Somalia were coming to resemble group therapy sessions. “One person will start off by explaining how they were running a great little project, getting results and moving things […]
Somalia’s Only Hope for Peace?
Amnesty’s hard-hitting report on human rights abuses in Somalia should make everyone stop and think. Mogadishu has long been a city of death and destruction (apart from a six-month period of quiet as the Islamic Courts imposed their own brand of security on the city) so there is no great shock to hear that the […]
Reporting from Mogadishu
Apologies for cross posting on Alex’s blog… Alex is back in Nairobi writing up the story he worked on in Somalia and he’s on deadline. Therefore, just a quick post from me to guide you to the BBC Radio 5 Live interview with Alex for the iPM show and, repeated again, for the Pods and […]
On the radio
Just popping in to post for Alex here… He’s back in Nairobi writing up the story he worked on in Somalia and he’s on deadline. Therefore, just a quick post from me to guide you to the BBC Radio 5 Live interview with Alex for the iPM show and, repeated again, for the Pods and […]
Amnesty on Somalia
Amnesty International UK PRESS RELEASE EMBARGOED: TUES 6 MAY 2008, 08:00hrs [for Wednesday’s newspapers] Somalia: Troops killing people ‘like goats’ by slitting throats – new Amnesty report Amnesty International today (6 May) released a report revealing the dire human rights and humanitarian crisis facing the people of Somalia. The report contains first-hand testimony from scores […]
Demonstrations against the Dollar
11am Somali time: Central and southern Mogadishu are currently awash with demonstrators protesting the massive inflation of the Somali national currency (Somali shilling) as well as shopkeepers who have started only accepting dollars on account of the near worthlessness of Somali bank notes. Previously there were denominations of 1, 2, 5, 10, 50, 100, 500 […]
Tipping Point
“Every individual Somali fights to stay himself, a person.” (Gerard Hanley in ‘Warriors’) The atmosphere can change in a matter of seconds while working in Somalia. Today we were traveling with a militia south of Mogadishu in part so that Philip could take some photos of a ‘technical’, the well-known battlewagon in Somalia popularized in […]
What I’m Reading…
Usually when traveling and working abroad I like to be reading about something completely off-topic. For this trip I brought with me Dick Davis’ translation/reworking of Abu al-Qasim Ferdowsi’s 10th century Persian epic, the Shahnameh or Book of Kings. I studied parts of it in classes at university, always perplexed by the complexity of the […]
Mogadishu Day Four
Today was a burst of activity following a very slow day yesterday – to ensure our security following the assassination of a senior al-Shabab leader (Aden Hashi ‘Ayrow) we spent most of the day inside the hotel conducting interviews there. This morning, however, we began with an interview with Somalia’s TFG (transitional federal government) deputy […]
The View from the Blogosphere
The view from Washington is no doubt that Thursday’s strike on Somalia, which killed Aden Hashi Ayro, was an unqualified success. Things are more difficult when viewed from Somalia. Royale Somalia points out that Somalis will be divided according to their support for or opposition to the Transitional Federal Government. He gives his colours away […]
Welcome to Somalia
I just got off the Skype chat with Alex in Mogadishu. He reckons he’s one of just three foreign reporters in Mogadishu at the moment. I thought of him when I read Janine Di Giovanni’s piece on Comment is free today about arriving at Moghadishu airport, A truckload of Kalashnikov wielding teenagers were waiting for […]
Ayrow: UPDATE 2
UPDATE 2: Al-Shabab official website has issued a statement on the death of Ayrow in Somali. “Airplanes of the enemy of Allah”, the text reads, have caused the “martyrdom of the mujahid and leader” Aden Ayrow as well as Sheikh Muhiyuddin Mohammad Omar (former Health Minister for the Islamic Courts). The statement said that a […]
Ayrow: UPDATE 1
UPDATE 1: Death toll from the attack seems to be 10. We have been speaking to people in Dhusa Mareb, including people digging in the rubble, and haven’t been able to confirm or find information on the speculated death toll of 30. Bakara Market area – stronghold of sorts of al-Shabab these days – in […]
Live from Somalia
Frontline blogger Alex Strick van Linschoten is in Somalia blogging as news breaks that the leader of Al-Shabab has been killed. Alex is working with the French photographer Philip Poupin in Mogadishu and as well as blogging he is posting his own pictures to his Flickr account.
Al-Shabab Leader Killed
Just a short note to confirm that Al-Shabab’s leader does seem to have died in an explosion (one presumes a missile) in Dhusa Mareb, central Somalia. Al-Shabab spokesperson held and press conference over the phone this morning with local radio stations in which they vowed they would retaliate against the attack. It makes working in […]
A Turning Point in Somalia?
Wires are reporting that Aden Hashi Ayro was killed in overnight US airstrikes on Somalia. If it’s true then it could be a turning point in the Islamist-led insurgency. He is/was the leader of the Shabaab, a nasty militia that acted as the military wing of the Islamic Courts Union. With the defeat of the […]
Ground Zero
“It is wonderful how little we have yet managed to impress the Somalis with our superior firepower.” (British officer following attempts to put down the ‘Mad Mullah’ in 1920s with R.A.F. bombers) Today was spent in a time capsule of sorts – visiting the destruction wreaked on the buildings of Mogadishu’s seafront at the end […]
“Life and death are cheap”
In the words of Smith Hempstone, the former US ambassador to Kenya: “If you liked Beirut, you’ll love Mogadishu…” And so it is. Arriving in a delayed Daallo Airways plane, fellow travellers flying on to the north of the country wish us well. “Life and death are cheap in this city…take care,” said one, patting […]
Leaving Nairobi
MGQ. A complex grouping of consonants represents Mogadishu in its airport 3-letter code. Mogadoxo to the Portuguese, Hamar to the Somalis, the city represents so much of the dashed dreams of the 1990s. Ticket in hand, I’m a little apprehensive about a place that exists more in rumour and myth than in reality. Journalist colleagues […]
Outwardbound
A sigh down the telephone line. “Somalia is not so much a failed state, as a state that never became a state,” a very wise and English-tinted voice tells me. I’m speaking to Professor I.M. Lewis on the phone about the country where I’m due to spend the next month and am momentarily overcome by […]
Somali journalists win award
The National Union of Somali Journalists (NUOSJ) received an award from the fifth assembly of World Movement for Democracy (WMD) in Kiev, Ukraine today. In what is turning out to be something of a media awards week the NUSOJ were presented with the Democracy Courage Tribute on behalf of all Somali Journalists. NUSOJ Secretary General […]
Journalist arrested in Somalia
Reporters Without Borders reports that Ayanle Hussein Abdi, a stringer with the BBC Somali service, was arrested yesterday in Beletwein in the central region of Hiran. There has been no explanation for the arrest, “The very few journalists who continue to work in Somalia at risk of their lives are easy prey,†[said Reporters Without […]
From Mogadishu
[video:brightcove:1378319364] David Axe, of the War is Boring blog, continues his Somalia coverage with a short film he shot for World Politics Review in December, 2007. Part two follows shortly.
For journalism
BBC World Service, Deutsche Welle, Radio France Internationale, Radio Netherlands Worldwide and the Voice Of America issue “an unprecedented joint resolution denouncing what they termed growing trends towards media restrictions and attacks on journalists in many of the countries to which they broadcast.” The heads of five of the largest international broadcasters have called upon […]
Somali journalist arrested
Freelance journalist Idle Moallim based in the port city of Bossaso in Somalia has been arrested by police in the northern Puntland region while working on a human trafficking story. The arrest comes less than a month after French journalist Gwen Le Gouil was kidnapped while working on another human trafficking story. Le Gouil was […]
