Fifty-six-year-old Gulid Ebrahim, who has been in Dadaab since 1992, says he has grown used to celebrating Eid in the camp: “It is like this every year, just every Eid, there are just more and more people”
The number of Somalis who will die of starvation this year is more than the population of Washington, DC. →
We can change this statistic.
From Bosnia to Somalia..
Bosnia-Herzegovina Solidarity Association delivered aid to Somali people living in the Dadaab refugee camp on the Somalia-Kenya border through IHH Humanitarian Relief Foundation which is carrying out relief efforts in the region for a long time.
In addition to emergency works against the drought crisis, IHH has been carrying out long-term projects in Somalia for 15 years. The foundation is also helping various non-governmental organizations to deliver the donations they received for Somalia. One of these organizations is Bosnia-Herzegovina Solidarity Association. Visiting IHH headquarter, President of Bosnia-Herzegovina Solidarity Association Zemira Gorinjac presented the donation, received by Bosnia people, to IHH.
Establishing a camp for the people who had to flee from their homes due to drought and took refuge at Kenyan border, IHH is delivering the donations of the charity givers to Somali people. President of the Bosnian Solidarity Association Zemira Groinjac joined IHH teams to distribute the relief supplies donated by Bosnian people. Visiting the Somali people in the region along with IHH teams, Gorinjac conveyed the greetings of Bosnians to Somalis.
“It’s the worst I’ve seen in any situation in the world.”
U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees Antonio Guterres about the current aid crisis in Somalia.
(A malnourished child is one of the residents at an internally displaced camp in Somalia. Photo by S. Modola/UNHCR.)
I Am A Star
Taking our cue from the flag of Somalia – the white Star of Unity centered in a field of blue–the I Am A Star campaign is unifying members of the Somalia Diaspora, aid workers on the ground in Mogadishu and people across the world. Together, we’re providing Famine relief in Somalia, and shining a light on a culture of poets, artists, mothers and fathers, children, innovators, farmers, businesspeople…human beings. Each one, a star in his or her own right. You can be a star for Somalia, too. There are dozens of ideas for how you can start shining, right here.
Large Somali communities in Minneapolis, San Diego, Columbus, London and other cities are joining forces with their neighbors to assist in the relief effort, and reframe the image of Somalia and her people.
Returning to Mogadishu - @AJEnglish updates viewers on the tormented Somali capital from where the network first reported in 2006. They find it worse off. The reporter Nazanine Moshiri stated why the network “chose Mogadishu as one of the cities from which to launch its new channel”:
The conflict in Somalia is one of the longest running in Africa, and one of the most under reported. The Somali people have lived without a central government for 20 years. War and famine have claimed perhaps a million lives.
Photos from tonight’s new Al Jazeera Fault Lines episode “Crisis in the Horn of Africa: Somalia’s Famine” airing at 2230 GMT (5:30p EST). Watch online.
This new episode premiered last night on Al Jazeera English at 2230 GMT.
In part one of a two-part series, Fault Lines goes to Mogadishu to see the impact of Somalia’s famine, and asks if US policies have contributed to the disaster.
The worst drought in 60 years has thrown some 13 million people across the Horn of Africa into crisis.
In Somalia, ravaged by two decades of conflict, the consequences have been disastrous. For over six months, aid agencies on the ground sounded the alarm that a major drought and famine was on the horizon.
Then in July and August, the world watched and international aid agencies scrambled as tens of thousands of Somalis fled famine and fighting in the devastated Southern part of the country, controlled by the armed group al-Shabab. And they continued to flee - to the Somali capital of Mogadishu, and refugee camps in Kenya and Ethiopia - in the following months, when the world seemed to lose interest.
Tens of thousands of Somalis have died and the UN has warned that three quarters of a million more are at risk of dying before the end of the year.
Somalia’s weak Transitional Federal Government, the Obama administration, and the United Nations have all blamed the anti-government group al-Shabab for restricting international aid operations in the areas they control. But is al-Shabab the only reason a drought and food crisis has turned into a deadly famine?
In the first of a two-part series examining the US response to drought and hunger in the Horn of Africa, Fault Lines travels to Mogadishu to meet refugees who have fled to the most war-ravaged city in the world to escape a worse fate, and the aid and medical workers struggling to help them. We examine the legacy of US engagement in Somalia and its efforts to address the current crisis.
Has aid in this region of the world become politicised? And has Washington’s pre-occupation with terrorism in the Horn of Africa contributed to the deadly consequences of this disaster?
http://english.aljazeera.net/programmes/faultlines/
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Not sure what exactly catches my eye in this picture, maybe it is the distinct foreground, middle and background that cut by the exposed bricks, array of colors in the group of people and the white IDP tents.
Credit: Gallo/Getty
Source: Al Jazeera
Al Jazeera is doing some of the most innovative journalism in the world. Case in point: Somalia Speaks, the first ever large scale survey of citizen sentiment in that region, and rather than using traditional methods they are collecting data via sms text messages.
Al Jazeera partnered with several organizations to bring the project to life. Middle Eastern classified advertisement NGO Souktel (whom Fast Company has written about before), mapping non-profit Ushahidi (ditto), enterprise crowdsourcing platform Crowdflower (…and ditto again) all contributed to the project, along with another organization called the African Diaspora Institute. Souktel managed the SMS gateway, Ushahidi provided the project’s mapping platform and assistance, and Crowdflower is assisting with offering a mechanism for crowdsourced analysis and translation of replies.
Somalia: A Look Back
Ibn Battuta is one of history’s great explorers. He set out from his native Tangier in 1325, when he was just 21. By the time he returned home for good almost 30 years later, he had covered some 120,000 km and nearly every part of the Islamic world.
What makes me so astonished is to read about this great scholars account of his visit to the Somali coastal capital Mogadishu in 1331. He paints a picture of an exotic, vibrant and rich nation which played a vital role in world trade.
Mogadishu is a very large town. The people are merchants and very rich. They own large herds of camels…and also sheep. Here they manufacture the textiles called after the name of the town; these are of superior quality and are exported to Egypt and other places.
Just makes me wonder what happened to this Somalia? (Graphics|Text)
Can Somalia survive as a nation?
Somalia has been a chaotic and violent hell for more than 20 years, especially Mogadishu, the capital.
Although there are many camps of hungry people, the city is showing signs of a return to normal life, thanks to the withdrawal of the Islamic extremist rebels of Al Shabaab and the presence of African Union peacekeeping forces.
(Read more: Life in Hell: An in-depth report)
After heavy fighting erupted on October 20 in Daynille, on the outskirts of Mogadishu, Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) was forced to suspend its measles vaccination campaign in the area. The campaign had been scheduled to last three weeks and to reach 35,000 children. Measles is currently wreaking havoc in Somalia, and MSF has vaccinated more than 60,000 people for measles over the past two months. Read more
Photo: Somalia 2011 © Feisal Omar
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