In Somalia, UN official spotlights plight of refugees returning to their homeland

9 July 2013 – The United Nations refugee chief today expressed solidarity with the Somali people during a visit to Mogadishu, particularly the hundreds of thousands who have fled the country and are seeking to return to their homeland after two decades of conflict.

“This is a moment of hope for the people of Somalia,” said High Commissioner for Refugees António Guterres, adding that his agency (UNHCR) will be working with Somalia and the host countries to be prepared when the time arrives to repatriate those who fled the country and who have “suffered on a scale that is beyond measurement.”

Somalia has been torn asunder by factional fighting since 1991 but has recently made progress towards stability. The conflict has left some 1.1 million internally displaced persons (IDPs) and over 1 million more living in exile in neighbouring countries, mostly in Kenya, Ethiopia and Yemen.

I hope peace will create the conditions inside Somalia to do what every refugee wants - to go back home.

With parts of Somalia showing signs of increasing stability, countries hosting Somali refugees are considering the potential to encourage them to return, while some Somalis have spontaneously decided to move back to areas under Government control.

“UNHCR likes nothing more than to help people go back home, based on their own free will and when conditions are met for a safe and dignified return,” Mr. Guterres said, while warning that the security situation is still fragile, particularly in central-south Somalia, where most of the refugees come from.

Humanitarian access to most parts of this region is still limited, UNHCR said in a news release, which hampers engagement with communities and delivery of assistance.

“Return to Somalia should be, first and foremost, voluntary,” Mr. Guterres said. “At this time, the vast majority of Somalis in exile are still in need of asylum as conditions are not yet safe for a rushed, large-scale repatriation.”

Just last month, the UN’s compound in Mogadishu was attacked, resulting in at least eight deaths. In addition, thousands are still fleeing unsafe conditions in Somalia, with some 21,000 refugee arrivals registered during the first half of this year.

Mr. Guterres called for a phased approach, assisting refugees who wish to return home and facilitating limited group returns to specific areas considered safe.

“The Somali situation will remain one of UNHCR’s top priorities,” Mr. Guterres said. “I hope peace will create the conditions inside Somalia to do what every refugee wants – to go back home.”

Somali refugee makes most of education opportunity in Eritrea

MASSAWA, Eritrea, July 1 (UNHCR) – Nothing has deterred Somali refugee Hali Shukri Ibrahim from her passion to get an education. Not an early forced marriage, nor war, nor separation from her parents, husband and baby son, nor exile.

In fact, the 26-year-old says becoming a refugee gave her the prized opportunity to study, and stoked her ambitions. Goals that back home, in Mogadishu, capital of then war-torn Somalia, would have been limited to raising a large family, she says.

Now a Grade 12 student at an Eritrean government high school near her home in Umkulu Refugee Camp, Hali is dreaming big. "I want to study hard, go to the university and become a doctor," she says. "When I came to Eritrea, I could hardly speak and write English. Now I am somewhat fluent and can write it."
It was her effort to learn English that started her on the meandering journey that brought her to this Red Sea port town, where more than 3,400 fellow Somalis live in the refugee camp.

At home in Mogadishu, she listened to the BBC to improve her English. One day in 2008 she heard on the BBC Family Tracing Programme that her parents were in Eritrea – and looking for her.
She had been a refugee with them there once before, in 1996 at the age of nine, but she went back to her native Somalia when fighting broke out later along the border between Ethiopia and Eritrea – leaving her entire family behind. Back in Mogadishu, she was married off to a complete stranger before even finishing primary school.

Once her husband learned her parents were looking for her, in an act of self-sacrifice he agreed to divorce her. He even helped her set off alone to find them. Parting from her two-year-old son, Hali set off through Djibouti before finally achieving the long-awaited reunion with her ageing parents.

Life in Umkulu Refugee Camp brought an unexpected benefit: UNHCR pays for Hali to attend the government school, 20 minutes from the camp, buys her school uniforms and takes care of the transport.
"I wouldn't want to be doing anything right now, other than studying," she says. Today, she uses her new language skills to work part-time as a Somali-English translator.

After rejoining her parents and getting a priceless education, her joy became complete when, five years after she had last seen him, UNHCR reunited her with her son, now seven. He too is now getting an education in the camp.

"My joy is boundless. To have my son back with me is to restore part of me that was dead," says Hali. "I'm happy to have him with me and take care of my diabetic father," she adds. "Of course I have to juggle between my schoolwork and family responsibilities, but I am not complaining."

This camp has just one primary school, attended by more than 1,100 pupils in kindergarten to Grade Eight. Because there are fewer than 100 secondary school students in the camp, "it is not cost effective to build a secondary school, and therefore UNHCR prefers that the refugee are integrated in the Eritrean public schools," says Viola Kuhaisa, education officer in UNHCR's Nairobi Regional Support Hub, who recently worked with UNHCR's Eritrean team in the camp.

For Hali, it doesn't matter whether the school is inside the camp, or 20 minutes away, as long as she gets an education. "If I was in Somalia," she says, "I'd be married with five or more children. I am eternally grateful to UNHCR for allowing me to pursue my dream and passion."

Dozens killed in battle for Somali port city

Battles between rival warlords in Somalia's key southern port city of Kismayo have killed at least 71 people last month, UN officials have said.

"Recent fierce fighting... continues to have a profound impact on civilians and humanitarian aid work in the Lower Juba region," the UN's World Health Organisation (WHO) said on Friday, adding the clashes also left more than 300 injured last month.

The WHO, which supports hospitals treating the war-wounded in Kismayo, said injuries and deaths outside the hospital are estimated to be much higher but cannot be confirmed.

"Kismayo remains a volatile area, with observed increase in fighting among warring factions, and other incidences of violence such as landmines and hand grenade attacks," the WHO added.
Several rival factions claim ownership of Kismayo, where Kenyan and African Union forces are now based after driving out the al-Qaeda-linked al-Shabab group.

They include Ahmed Madobe, the chief of armed group Ras Kamboni, who in May appointed himself "president" of Jubaland, and Bare Hirale, a former Somali defence minister who also leads a powerful militia.
Kismayo has changed hands more than a dozen times since the collapse of the central government in 1991.
The city was controlled by al-Shabab until last September when the armed groups fled an offensive by Kenyan troops supported by Madobe's Ras Kamboni.

A local assembly last month declared Madobe president of the southern Jubaland region, handing him back control of Kismayo.

But Somalia's central government, which does not view Madobe favourably, said his appointment was unconstitutional.

Within days three other men had pronounced themselves president, including Barre Hirale, a pro-Mogadishu former defence minister.

Regional capitals and Western donors are nervous of any reversal of security gains made in Somalia by African Union peacekeepers in the fight against the al Qaeda-linked fighters, seen as a threat to stability in east Africa and beyond.

Somalia's Shebab fighters: divided but still deadly

For the past year, many celebrated that Somalia's Shebab fighters were on the back foot, as African Union and government forces wrested town after town from the Al-Qaeda-linked gunmen.
But despite recent infighting -- including the recent killing of top leaders in a bloody purge -- analysts warn the extremist group are far from defeated.
A brazen daylight attack last month on a fortified United Nations compound in Mogadishu, with a seven-man suicide commando blasting into the complex and killing 11 in a gun battle to the death, followed similar tactics used in an attack on a court house in April.
"Despite significant infighting, Al-Shebab stepped up attacks... shaking the fragile sense of security in the capital by launching attacks," the International Crisis Group (ICG) notes.
The complex attacks came even as top Shebab leader Ahmed Abdi Godane moved against fellow commanders who had criticised his leadership, killing two co-founders of the Islamist group.
Those included US-wanted Ibrahim Haji Jama Mead, better known by his nickname Al-Afghani -- or "the Afghan" -- due to his training and fighting with Islamist guerrillas there.
Afghani was a commander "highly popular with Al-Qaeda", notes Stig Jarle Hansen, from Norway's University of Life Sciences and author of a book on the Shebab.
The deaths show the splits in the long-running insurgency to topple the internationally-backed government -- defended by 17,700 AU troops -- but also signal Godane's efforts to sweep away opposition to his command and cement his more radical leadership.
Afghani was killed after he reportedly penned a letter circulated on extremist websites to Al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri, criticising Godane's leadership.
Afghani's killing is "very important", added Hansen, noting that Godane -- with a $7 million US bounty on his head -- faces tough challenges to lead the fractured and decentralised forces, and maintain the loyalty of veteran commanders.
-- Risk of fresh 'Afghan-style' attacks --
"One scenario if Godane fails (to unite forces) is that the Shebab turns into something like the (Ugandan-led rebel)Lord's Resistance Army...an organisation based around terror and the charisma of the leader," Hansen told AFP.
"It can remain a shadow structure that is to be reckoned with also inside Kenya and Tanzania."
There are concerns Godane's elimination of commanders with more nationalist agendas could see a rise in attacks such as the assault on the UN compound, tactics more commonly seen in Afghanistan.
How Al-Qaeda's "central" leadership will react to Godane's purges will also be important, Hansen added.
Veteran Islamist leader Hassan Dahir Aweys, allied to the Shebab since 2010, also fled Godane's purge after criticising his rule, and has since been placed under arrest in the capital Mogadishu.
"His capture does not spell the end for Al-Shebab," wrote Somali analyst Abdihakim Ainte for the African Arguments site, hosted by Britain's Royal African Society.
"Quite the contrary, it may encourage hardliners to stage more deadly assaults in order to counter the view that Al-Shebab is on the back foot."
The influential cleric and former army colonel is on both US and UN Security Council terrorism sanctions lists.
But Aweys has long been critical of Godane and while his arrest is significant, the impact on the Shebab's operational capacity is less important.
Yet divisions amongst Somalia's national army, cobbled together out of multiple militia forces, continue to be exploited by the Shebab.
Mogadishu's government is also struggling to impose authority over autonomous regions unused to central control after two decades of war.
"Despite progress... Al-Shebab still remains the primary threat to the survival of the new Somali government", South Africa's Institute for Security Studies (ISS) warned in a recent report, adding that while it may not be in control but it could "make the country ungovernable."
Cash flows have dried up but funds are still raised inside Somalia through local taxes.
Key strongholds remaining include rural southern and central Somalia, while another faction has dug into remote and rugged mountains in the northern Puntland region.
Still, the force is believed to be less capable of carrying out the major regional attacks as it did in the 2010 bombings in Uganda, killing 74 as people watched the World Cup.
"We believe they are now more focused internally on Somalia and lack the capability for regional attacks, but we remain ever watchful," said one Western security expert.
"But in terms of defeat inside Somalia, we must be careful not to confuse the victory symbol of raising flags in the centre of towns with the harder task of establishing control."


Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/world/2013/07/04/somalia-shebab-fighters-divided-but-still-deadly/#ixzz2YPSdkTlP