By KRISTINE FRAZAO, Sinclair Broadcast Group WASHINGTON (SBG) – The hope for Somalia is the hope for most countries around the world: peace and long-term stability. As part of that effort, the United States has been helping build up the Somali National Army to fight terror groups like al-Shabab. But a report last year by the...
November 14, 2026
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‘Somalia at a critical juncture’ says UN’s political chief in her first visit
UN Photo / Omar Abdisalan Rosemary DiCarlo, the United Nations Under-Secretary-General for Political Affairs, and Michael Keating (left), the Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General for Somalia, meet the Federal President of Somalia, Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed Farmaajo, at the Presidential Palace in Mogadishu on 7 June 2018. Unity is essential for Somalis to achieve lasting peace...
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Italy will no longer be ‘Europe’s refugee camp,’ vows new government
By Gavin Jones ROME (Reuters) – Italy will no longer be “Europe’s refugee camp”, newly installed interior minister Matteo Salvini said on Monday as he promised tough action to reduce migrant arrivals and send back those who have already come. Salvini, head of the right-wing League and a deputy prime minister in the eurosceptic coalition,...
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AU: Amisom lacks resources to defeat al-Shabaab
By KEVIN J KELLEY, The East African Logistical problems and military deficiencies are handicapping the African Union Mission in Somalia (Amisom) in its decade-long fight against al-Shabaab, an AU official acknowledged in a wide-ranging and generally pessimistic assessment published Thursday. The Somalia National Army’s longstanding lack of capacity could “even lead to the mission’s defeat,”...
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Back to Mogadishu (Part III): Thirty-One Years Later
By Hassan M. Abukar It was the phone call of a lifetime—one that would take me back to the land of my birth with a job offer that would catapult me into a rarefied position of serving the country’s top leadership. On February 6, 2018, while I was driving outside Phoenix, Arizona, on my way...
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EU handouts not always the answer for Africa’s returning migrants
By Sofia Christensen & Edward McAllister DAKAR (Reuters) – When Fatou Kine’s failed attempt to reach Europe left her jobless and penniless in Algeria, she turned to an agency she had heard helped migrants return home. The United Nation’s International Organization for Migration, or IOM, did that and more. It flew her back to Senegal...
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Is the Conflict over Sool one over the Soul of Somalia?
By Faisal Roble The Conflict over Tukaraq Many observers of the conflict in Sool (Sool is where Tukaraq is located) seem to simplify it. One such a person is Abdi Samatar of the University of Minnesota. In a recent interview with the VOA Somali program, he blamed the conflict on the lack of “iimaan,” or...
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Kenya moves to regulate fintech-fuelled lending craze
By Maggie Fick and Omar Mohammed NAIROBI (Reuters) – Kenya built a reputation as a pioneer of financial inclusion through its early adoption of a mobile money system that enables people to transfer cash and make payments on cellphones without a bank account. Now, a proliferation of lenders are using the same technology to extend...
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The Trials and Tribulations of Omar Pilot
By Adan Makina Mistreatment of Somalis in pre and post-independent Kenya was precariously and institutionally carried out on a wide scale in brusquely overbearing ways.[i] The hardships endured by Omar Farah Hussein Ali who was among the first Somali pilots in Kenya, better known as Omar Pilot is worth contemplating. Born December 1951 in Raya...
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How educational programs in Africa can help counter violent extremism
By Beza Tesfaye and Beth Maclin Somalia’s capital has been rocked by multiple bomb attacks in the past few months, and a May 6 blast in a border town killed seven Kenyan soldiers. In recent months, a series of bombings left dozens dead or injured. Most analysts believe that al-Shabab, the al-Qaeda-backed extremist group that has waged an insurgency against the federal government for more than...