Somalia famine in 2010-12 'worst in past 25 years' ›

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kateoplis:

Prostitute Faduma Ali, who longs for the days when her pirate customers had money, chews the stimulant khat and smokes a cigarette at a house in the once-bustling pirate town of Galkayo, Somalia. “Those days are over. Can you pay me $1,000?” she asked, the price she once commanded for a night’s work. “If not, goodbye and leave me alone.”

Somalia Pirates in Decline

Somalia facing 'fresh hunger emergency' ›

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mohandasgandhi:

eastafrodite:

thepeoplesrecord:

US drone attack in southwestern Somalia kills 35
June 17, 2012

Local witnesses said the Saturday attacks near Gedo’s Garbaherey town targeted two al-Shabab bases. 

Officials say nine al-Shabab seniors were killed, while dozens of innocent people were also wounded in the airstrikes. 

The US military uses remote-controlled drones in Somalia for reconnaissance operations and targeted killings. 

Washington has been carrying out assassination attacks using the unmanned aircraft in other countries including Afghanistan, Libya, Pakistan, and Yemen. 

The United States claims the CIA-run strikes are aimed at militants. But witness reports and figures offered by local authorities indicate the attacks have led to massive civilian deaths in these countries. 

The UN has condemned the US assassination drone strikes, saying they pose a challenge to international law. 

Source

Just another day under the Obama administration.

OKAY, that’s about enough now.

The crisis in Somalia is not going to end soon. History is repeating itself and this is a never-ending problem. What I see today is what I saw in 1991: desperate people who fled their war-torn country, leaving everything behind, only to end up in a camp where living conditions are below what is humanly dignified.

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lisbonworldnews:

Somalia’s Complex Clan Dynamics

Seth Kaplan | January 10, 2012

Understanding the failure of Somalia as a state requires understanding the country’s complex clan dynamics.

Somalia embodies one of postcolonial Africa’s worst mismatches between conventional state structures and indigenous customs and institutions. The fact that Somalis share a common ethnicity, culture, language, and religion might seem to be an excellent basis for a cohesive polity, but in reality the Somali people are divided by clan affiliations, the most important component of their identity. Repeated attempts to impose a centralized bureaucratic governing structure have managed only to sever the state from the society that should have been its foundation, yielding the world’s most famous failed state.

The Somali population—some 13 to 14 million people, including Somalis living in neighboring states—is divided into four major clans and a number of minority groups (see map below). Each of these major clans consists of subclans and extended family networks that join or split in a fluid process of “constant decomposition and recomposition.” Like tribal societies elsewhere in the Greater Middle East, the clans use deeply ingrained customary law to govern their communities completely independently of modern state structures. Although somewhat weakened in the south from decades of urbanization, violence, and attempts to create a centralized state, these traditional groupings still hold immense influence over society.

Since the failure of the state some twenty years ago, the parts of the country that have achieved the most stability are those that are based on these clans. The Haarti grouping (a subset of the Daarood) created a semiautonomous region in the east called Puntland, while in the northeast the Isaaq clan led the effort to build Somaliland. Many other parts of Somalia have been similarly governed by local groupings, which have used the traditional governing system to resolve disputes and encourage some investment even in the absence of a formal state.

Among these regional entities, Somaliland has been the most successful, declaring itself independent and holding a series of free elections. Despite—or, perhaps, because of—a dearth of assistance from the international community, it has been able to construct a set of robust governing bodies rooted in traditional Somali concepts of governance by consultation and consent. By integrating traditional ways of governance—including customary norms, values, and relationships—within a modern state apparatus, Somaliland has achieved greater cohesion and legitimacy while—not coincidentally—creating greater room for competitive elections and public criticism than exists in most similarly endowed territories.

These dynamics suggest that any eventual solution to the problem of state building in Somalia will have to take fully into account the country’s indigenous social fabric and institutions, and will have to build from the bottom up, integrating communal ways of working together into state structures. The international community will have to abandon its attempts to impose a top-down, centralized, and profoundly artificial state model and begin to work with, rather than against, the grain of Somali society. A central government could be retained, but its functions should be strictly limited in scope and its institutions in number.

HERE

(via fuckyeahcartography)

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justthetipoffeminism:

Somalia Faces Alarming Rise in Rapes of Women and Girls 

(via crookedindifference)

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doctorswithoutborders:

Somalis in Ethiopia: “It Is Not Good for People to Fear Every Day and Night”

“We are from Gedo [region, not far from Ethiopia], and for the last ten years we have had to flee to Ethiopia regularly because of war or draught,” said Zaynab when asked how she came to the Dolo Health Center. “I think this is the fourth or fifth time that we are back in Ethiopia.”

—Zaynab and her three-year-old son Ibrahim have been in the intensive therapeutic feeding center (ITFC) of Dolo Health Center for 17 days because Ibrahim was severely malnourished.

To read more about Zaynab and Ibrahim’s story and the stories of other Somali refugees in Ethiopia read the rest of the article here.

Photo:Ethiopia 2011 © Michael Tsegaye (Zaynab brought her son Ibrahim to the Hiloweyn ITFC to get treatment for his severe malnourishment.)

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doctorswithoutborders:

This mother and child—and this part of Mogadishu—show the toll of the overlapping political, security, and public health crises in Somalia, which have put an immense burden on women and children.

Years marked by conflict, drought, and a profound lack of governance culminated in a massive humanitarian crisis in the second half of 2011, to which MSF responded by expanding its programs in Somalia and for the huge numbers of Somali refugees who sought aid in Kenya and Ethiopia.

Photo: Somalia © Lynsey Addario/VII

(via rightsandhumanity)

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fotojournalismus:

Somalia, 1992. Child starved by famine, a man-made weapon of mass extermination.

[Credit : James Nachtwey]

Find ways to donate to the current famine in Somalia here.