Somalia

John Norris and Bronwyn Bruton write: On the morning of Oct. 4, a truck bomb exploded on a well-trafficked street outside the Ministry of Education in the Somali capital of Mogadishu, killing upwards of 80 bystanders, many of them university students. The attack brought an end to the relative lull that had held in Mogadishu [...]

The Associated Press reports: Kaltum Mohamed sits beside a small mound of earth, alone with her thoughts. It is her child’s grave—and there are three others like it. Just three weeks ago, Mohamed was the mother of five young children. But the famine that has rocked Somalia has claimed the lives of four of them. [...]

Ramzy Baroud writes: “When you are hungry, cold is a killer, and the people here are starving and helpless.” Not many of us can relate to such a statement, but millions of ‘starving and helpless’ people throughout the Horn of Africa know fully the pain of elderly Somali mother, Batula Moalim. Moalim, quoted by the [...]

Warning of Somali ‘catastrophe’ BBC News, October 31, 2007 International aid agencies are warning of an “unfolding humanitarian catastrophe” in parts of Somalia after recent fierce fighting in the capital. The UN’s refugee agency (UNHCR) says about 36,000 have fled Mogadishu since Saturday and the worsening security means relief cannot be given to them. [complete [...]