Somalia is 'most ignored tragedy'

The world should be shocked at the systematic destruction of Somalia's capital, Mogadishu, and its residents, says lobby group Human Rights Watch.

The organisation told the BBC the city had become a zone of free-fire between government and insurgent forces.

It said if such a situation was happening anywhere else in the world, like Georgia or Lebanon for example, it would be considered a travesty.

Instead Somalia was the most ignored tragedy in the world today, HRW said.

Meanwhile, a group of 52 non-governmental organisations (NGOs) has issued a statement saying the international community had "completely failed Somali civilians".

The aid groups estimate that almost 40,000 people had been displaced from Mogadishu in the last few weeks, with 1.1 million uprooted in the last nine months.

Eerie

BBC World Affairs correspondent Mark Doyle recently visited Mogadishu and says the city on the Indian Ocean, which was previously one of Africa's trading hubs with the Middle East, is dying.

Now whole swathes of it are rubble or skeletons of buildings without doors or windows or roofs, he says.

He adds that the most shocking, eerie aspect of it is that in many parts of the capital all the people have fled.

The fighting is between the US-backed government and Islamist and nationalist insurgents, who Washington accuses of having links with al-Qaeda.

There are no international aid workers left as they are threatened with kidnap for ransom or are murdered.

The fighting has been much worse for the ordinary residents of Mogadishu than even the infamous period in the early 1990s that spawned the film Black Hawk Down, a portrayal of US troops killed in Somalia at that time, our World Affairs correspondent says.

In the early 1990s not a night passed without explosions lighting up the sky, he says.

But even that did not empty the capital of Somalia like the daily fratricidal confrontations now taking place between the government and its armed opponents.

Source: BBC

CARE says threat by Somali militant group puts aid at risk

NAIROBI, Oct. 6 (Xinhua) -- A United States-based aid agency, Care International, said the direct threat by a Somali military group has put at risk the lives of one million people who need humanitarian aid.

A statement from the organization received here Monday said the public threat delivered through a media statement on Thursday by the spokesperson of a local militia group is also threatening CARE's humanitarian operations throughout Somalia.

"We take security threats of this nature very seriously," said David Gilmour, Country Director for CARE Somalia.

"The safety of our staff is paramount to our operations. These kinds of targeted and public threats ultimately force us to choose between the safety of our colleagues on the ground and our commitment to deliver aid to hundred of thousands of Somalis who are in desperate need of assistance."

Last week, the Islamist insurgents controlling much parts of southern Somalia have warned foreign charities working there not to meddle in their affairs, sparking fears of increasingly hardline rule.

As when they ruled south Somalia for six months in 2006, residents say the Islamists are again providing much-needed security but also imposing fundamentalist practices in areas they have re-taken this year.

"We warn International Medical Corps and Care International operating in areas under our control not to interfere as they have done before," Sheikh Muktar Robow Abumansoor, the spokesman of Al-Shabaab Islamic movement was quoted as saying.

The situation in Somalia is extremely tense, with dozens of civilian casualties every week, periodic abductions and killings of aid workers. Since the beginning of 2008, at least 24 relief workers have lost their lives, while 10 remain hostages.

Two of the abducted people are CARE staff. The United Nations estimates that 3.2 million people, 40 percent of the total Somali population, are currently in desperate need of humanitarian assistance.

This is due to a combination of factors including prolonged conflict, rising global food and fuel prices, as well as spiraling hyper inflation.

CARE has worked in Somalia since 1981, and today is one of the largest international humanitarian organizations in the country.

Emergency interventions in Somalia include lifesaving activities such as the delivery of food, water and sanitation to approximately 1 million people.
 
Source: Xinhua

Rendition victims threaten to sue Kenya government

NAIROBI (Reuters) - Eight Kenyans who were arrested as suspected Somali Islamist fighters and covertly flown to Ethiopia threatened to sue the government on Monday if the officials they blame for their rendition are not charged.

The eight men were among suspected Islamists detained by Kenyan troops early last year when members of a Somali sharia courts group fled into Kenya after being driven from power.

Rights activists and Muslim groups accuse the Kenyan authorities of covertly rounding up scores of people who were sent to Mogadishu and Addis Ababa for interrogation. They say they were tortured.

The eight returned from Ethiopia on Saturday. On Monday, their lawyers demanded Kenya's Attorney General take action.

"We urge you to direct the police to immediately investigate the identity of the public officials who authorised the arbitrary kidnapping of our clients, with a view to arresting and prosecuting the officials for abuse of office," the lawyers said in a letter.

It said the eight had been subjected to mental and physical torture while in Ethiopia, where they had been interrogated and abused by investigators from several nations.

"Officers of the Somalia government, Ethiopian military, FBI officers and British officers frequently assaulted them and taunted them that they were al Qaeda terrorists destined to die at the American naval prison at Guantanamo bay in Cuba."

The lawyers said the eight had been undergoing medical checks in the port city of Mombasa, and that they planned to sue the government if they did not receive a reply from the Attorney General within seven days.

The Kenyan authorities deny sending their citizens abroad.

"Wild and unverifiable charges that the government deported Kenyans to Ethiopia are baseless," a statement from the government spokesman's office said on Monday.

"The government has been very clear that it repatriated combatants to Somalia after they, the combatants, said they were not Kenyan," the statement said.

Last week, U.S.-based Human Rights Watch said at least 150 men, women and children from more than 18 countries had been rounded up near the Somali border at the start of last year. It said most had been sent home, but that several were missing.

Source: Reuters