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September 25, 2006

Somalia: Islamists Seize Port, Shoot Child

News from Reuters via Mail & Guardian, the BBC, Associated Press, Reuters (earlier edition), New Zealand Herald, SomaliNet, Shabelle and Agence France Presse via Turkish Press reports that over the weekend, the Islamists gathered at the outskirts of the southern port of Kismayo. This city, 260 miles southwest of Mogadishu, is the last of the ports on the southern coast to be taken over by the Islamists. It is the third largest city in Somalia.

Kismayo has been under the control of Colonel Bare Adam Shire Hiraale, who is defense minister of the interim government, and leader of the Juba Valley Coalition. Earlier he had said that he would defend the city but it appears that as the Islamists moved toward Kismayo, he fled. It is thought that he went to Gedo region in southwest Somalia, where his clan is located, though this has not been confirmed. Some Somalis assumed he had fled as a military tactic, to attack the Islamists as they tried to enter the city. But this never happened. Hiraale's deputy, Yusuf Mire Mahmud, confirmed that he had left on Sunday. Mahmud said yesterday: "Tomorrow the people of Kismayo will welcome the courts."

The Islamist militia in their "battlewagons" assembled outside the town yesterday. Overnight they entered Kismayo, and were met with no resistance. Earlier today they drove the battlewagons triumphantly through the streets. Some accounts say the Islamists were met with a jubilant reception.

However, after their initial takeover of the town, which involved not a single shot being fired, the situation worsened today. Several thousand protesters gathered to voice their dissent, and militia allied to the Union of Islamic Courts opened fire on them. Three people were hit by bullets and injured. Some accounts say that one adult and two children were injured.

One protester said: "They are...al-Qaida and we do not want them. Theirs is not a religion. They are terrorists."

In the shooting, a later report from Reuters claims that a 13 year old boy has died as a result of his injuries.

Another protester said: "We have been taken over by extremists, the Islamic courts have taken us by force, and now they are firing at us."

There have been accounts of the Islamists previously protesting against the use of foreigners from Ethiopia by the interim government, which is based in Baidoa.

Now it seems that the Islamists themselves are open about their own use of foreign mercenaries. Sheikh Hassan Turki said that the interim government had "called foreigners....and we are getting help from our Muslim brothers to train us."

Though he did not specify the foreign countries, they are believed to come from Eritrea, Pakistan and Yemen.

More troops from Ethiopia are reported to have entered Somalia to shore up the defenses of the interim government. This government was set up in 2004 under the aegis of the United Nations. It was the first government to emerge from the chaos which followed the ouster of the dictator Mohamed Siad Barre in 1991.

The interim government has condemned the takeover of Kismayo.

In separate news, the situation for refugees from Somalia is getting worse. AKI reported on Friday (September 22) that Somali refugees are relying on people traffickers to take them to refuge in Yemen. Currently there are 88,000 registered refugees in Yemen. 84,000 of these are Somali.

Over the past three weeks, 2,143 East Africans have been smuggled over the Gulf of Aden, where their journeys are perilous and accompanied by savagery and violence. 39 people are known to have died, mainly through drowning, and at least 53 are said to be missing. Recently there have been accounts of traffickers clubbing people to death and hurling them overboad, merely for requesting water to drink.

In the first four months of 2006, more than 10,000 Somalis and Ethiopians made the hazardous journey, and hundreds had been thrown overboard by gun-wielding traffickers.

Posted by Giraldus Cambrensis at September 25, 2006 3:35 PM

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