The Guardian A woman being held in prison in Somalia for taking part in peaceful protests has described how she was tortured by her guards. Sadia Moalim Ali, 27, told the Guardian she was stripped naked by two male guards in a room monitored by CCTV, kicked, beaten with a baton and left for two days in...
Maryam watched her goats starve and her crops fail. She buried two of her children before she finally gave up hope and sought help from international aid agencies in southern Somalia. She left her village with her remaining six children, making the long journey along the Jubba River to one of a clutch of makeshift...
Nairobi (WDN) – In a defiant and sharply worded interview, former South West State leader Abdiaziz Hassan Laftagareen has broken his silence, delivering a forceful account of how Baidoa fell and issuing a direct challenge to the federal government’s authority. Former President Laftagareen rejected the notion that the operation to seize Baidoa was aimed at...
Mogadishu (WDN) – In a rare and revealing account, the former President of Somalia’s South West Administration, Abdiaziz Hassan (Laftagareen), has publicly broken his silence on the circumstances that led to the loss of control over Baidoa, offering a detailed narrative that sheds new light on one of the region’s most politically sensitive transitions. Speaking...
By Abdullahi A. Nor President Mustafe Omer has been in the same seat for about eight years. Prime Minister Abiy parachuted him from Mogadishu without consulting the people in the region. His peddlers were many social media activists, such as Messay Kebede and Naemin Zeleka, who at the time opposed EPRDF but now want to...
By Shukri Mohammed I have read the articles by Abdi Sheik and Mohamed Olad, and before even turning to their content, one preliminary issue deserves attention. The intent and the names of Olad’s article were to fan an already perceived low-intensity conflict between two clan groups in the Hiiran Zone of Somalia. As the original...
Mogadishu (WDN)- In a wide-ranging interview, presidential candidate Abdulkadir Cosoble portrayed Mogadishu as both Somalia’s most inclusive city and the financial backbone of the federal government. But while his remarks on the capital’s social openness resonate with many, his claims about its fiscal dominance do not withstand scrutiny. Cosoble argued that taxes collected in Mogadishu...
By Wilo Abdulle Osman This is not a collection of soundbites. It is not a series of disconnected grievances gathered from the margins of Somali political life. What follows is a complete and unbroken composite testimony, a single coherent and devastating statement woven from the voices of ordinary citizens, political insiders, intellectuals, diaspora returnees, civil...
TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — U.S. President Donald Trump on Sunday made expletive-laden new threats to escalate strikes on Iran and its infrastructure if it doesn’t open the Strait of Hormuz by his deadline, after American forces rescued an aviator whose Iran-downed plane fell behind enemy lines. A defiant Iran struck infrastructure targets in neighboring Gulf Arab countries, challenged the U.S. account...
By Dr. Abdulkadir Osman Farah “Xudduntii dhulkaygaay, Xaruntii dadkaygaay, Xamareey ma nabad baa? Xiddigtii bahdeediyo, Xubnaheeda kala maqan u ahayd xusuustee, Sumaddooda xaynkiyo, Shanta gees u xidhataay. Laamaha xorriyaddiyo, Xayn-daabka calankee, Xejinaaya dhalashada, Xididkay ka beermaan, Xinjir laga waraabshaay” Maxamed Ibrahim Haraawi (The late Somali Poet and Intellectual) “In Xamar (Mogadishu) in 1950s and up...