GENEVA – The UN Independent Expert on the situation of human rights in Somalia, Shamsul Bari, today urged the international community to provide due attention to the protection of civilians in Somalia and ensure accountability for perpetrators of gross human rights and International Humanitarian law violations.
"I am deeply disturbed by the continuing endless reports of civilian casualties- many of them women and children- caused by ongoing fighting in South-Central region and in Mogadishu," said Mr. Bari, who has just completed his fifth country visits to Kenya, Somalia and Uganda (26 July-6 August). "One Mogadishu hospital alone reported that it had treated 1,400 war-wounded persons in the first six months of the year."
"Many children and young people risk being recruited by armed groups and used in the front lines and there are generations who have known nothing but violence and conflict," the UN Human Rights Council Independent Expert warned.
Ottawa man with criminal record faces deportation, but has no ties to troubled country
An Ottawa man who came to Canada from Somalia as a child refugee and went on to a life of crime faces deportation to a strife-torn homeland that he hasn't seen since the age of eight.
Abadir Ali, 26, has been declared a danger to the Canadian public by federal immigration officials. That designation was upheld as lawful in a recent Federal Court decision.
In that ruling, Judge Leonard Mandamin said immigration officials arrived at a reasonable conclusion in finding that Ali's risk to the Canadian public outweighed the personal risk he faces in Somalia.
A U.S. citizen is scheduled to appear in court Monday after charges that he tried to provide material support to two terrorist organizations.
Shaker Masri is charged with trying to aid al Qaeda and al Shabaab, according to a criminal complaint. His status hearing is scheduled for 9 a.m.
Federal prosecutors in Chicago, Illinois, also charged Masri with a charge relating to weapons of mass destruction, according to a criminal complaint.
Masri, 26, tried to violate a law that prohibits U.S. nationals "from using, threatening, attempting or conspiring to use a weapon of mass destruction outside the United States," the complaint said.
The Seychelles Supreme Court has sentenced 11 Somalis to 10 years in prison on piracy-related charges, according to the Department of Legal Affairs
"Eight accused were convicted for the offence of committing an act of piracy and three others for aiding and abetting an act of piracy," a statement said. Charges related to "acts of terrorism" were dropped by the court.
The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that former Somali Prime Minister Mohamed Ali Samantar can be sued in U.S. courts over claims he oversaw torture and extrajudicial killings during his time in office.
In a ruling issued Tuesday, Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens said Samantar was not protected by diplomatic immunity, and can be sued.
Samantar, who now lives in the U.S, in the state of Virginia, served as Somalia's defense minister in the 1980s and then as prime minister from 1987 to 1990.
This is a summary of what was said by UNHCR spokesperson Andrej Mahecic – to whom quoted text may be attributed – at the press briefing, on 28 May 2010, at the Palais des Nations in Geneva.
More than 17,000 people have been displaced from their homes in the Somali capital Mogadishu in May. Over 14,300 fled in the past two weeks alone, following renewed, heavy fighting between the Transitional Federal Government troops, supported by the African Union Peace Keeping Force (AMISOM), and armed opposition groups.
We note with grave concern that the rates of casualties and displacement have increased over the past 14 days. According to information we are seeing in field reports, at least 60 people have been killed and more than 50 wounded and injured in street clashes. An estimated 200,000 Somalis have been displaced since the beginning of the year.
LONDON — A British couple held hostage in Somalia appealed to Prime Minister David Cameron's government to help free them, in an interview aired on Wednesday, but London again insisted it would not talk to hostage-takers.
Paul and Rachel Chandler, who appeared in reasonable health in the video and were back together after being separated, said they wanted Cameron to clarify Britain's position seven months after their abduction.
"I would like to say congratulations to David Cameron first. As the new prime minister we desperately need him to make a definitive public statement of the government's attitude to us," said Paul Chandler.
"We are two British citizens, we have been kidnapped in the Seychelles which was a perfectly safe place to be," he added in the interview, broadcast by Channel 4 News.
Governments worldwide urged not to forcibly return people to Somalia where lives are at risk.
GENEVA – Amid a fast deteriorating situation in Somalia, UNHCR on Friday issued an urgent appeal to governments everywhere not to forcibly return people to that country.
Speaking at a press briefing in Geneva, UNHCR's chief spokesperson, Melissa Fleming, said inconsistencies in the way that countries are dealing with people fleeing Somalia were allowing returns to happen and putting lives at risk.
"Today, we are appealing to all states to uphold their international obligations with regard to non-refoulement," she said. "In recent months there have been incidents of returns . . . These have included a further reported deportation, of over 100 Somalis from Saudi Arabia to Mogadishu in mid May."
ROTTERDAM, Netherlands — Five Somali men went on trial in a Dutch court for the 17th century crime of "sea robbery" Tuesday in Europe's first piracy trial since a surge of attacks on shipping off the Somalia's lawless coast. One defendant wept and shouted that poverty had forced him into his situation.
Scores of pirates have been detained and several have been brought to Europe, but many are released because of the cost and difficulty of bringing them to trial. Other European countries will be watching the Dutch case closely to weigh the merits of bringing piracy suspects to trial.
The five men were captured in January 2009 after allegedly attacking a cargo ship registered in the Dutch Antilles in the Gulf of Aden. The ship's crew held off the attack with flares until a Danish navy frigate intervened and sank the pirates' boat.
Abdiwali Abdiqadir Muse is led into a federal building by US authorities in New York. Photograph: Stephen Chernin/Getty Images
A Somali man pleaded guilty on Tuesday to charges that he hijacked an American-flagged cargo ship and kidnapped its captain, in what the authorities called the first piracy prosecution in the United States in decades.
The man, Abduwali Abdukhadir Muse, also pleaded guilty to conspiracy and hostage taking in the hijacking of the Maersk Alabama container ship in April 2009. The highjacking ended with a daring high-seas rescue by United States naval forces and spotlighted the rampant problem of piracy off Somalia.
“What we did was wrong,” Mr. Muse, speaking through an interpreter, told United States District Judge Loretta A. Preska in Manhattan. “I am very, very sorry for the harm we did. The reason for this is the problems in Somalia.”
In exchange for his plea, prosecutors agreed to drop four of the six counts against him, including the most serious, “the crime of piracy as defined by the law of nations,” which carries a mandatory life sentence.
The defendants demanded the right to appeal the sentence
SANAA — A Yemeni court Tuesday sentenced six Somali pirates to death and jailed six others for 10 years each for hijacking a Yemeni oil tanker and killing two cabin crew in April last year.
In the first verdict of its kind against Somali pirates, a Yemeni court of first instance punished the defendants for "attempting to seize the Yemeni oil tanker... killing two crew members and wounding four others," according to the verdict.
The hijackers had forcibly captured the oil tanker Qana after it set sail from Al-Mukalla port in southeast Yemen on April 26, 2009. Yemeni forces recovered the ship the following day after a gunfight with the pirates.
NORFOLK, Va. — A federal judge has postponed the U.S. trial of six Somali nationals charged with piracy off the coast of Africa to give both sides more time to prepare.
U.S. District Judge Raymond A. Jackson on Thursday pushed back the trial to Oct. 19 from July. The suspects are charged in an April 10 attack on the Navy vessel USS Ashland.
The Somalis, who don't speak English, are charged with piracy and related counts and could face life in prison if convicted.
Pirates vow revenge on any Russians they capture after crew of hijackers abandoned in Gulf on Aden without navigation equipment or much hope of survival.
Somalia’s transitional government called on Russia on Friday to explain why it had cut 10 Somali pirates adrift in the Gulf on Aden without navigation equipment or much hope of survival.
Russian forces last week stormed a hijacked oil tanker in a rescue operation that killed one pirate. Russia said 10 others arrested were later set loose aboard one of the small vessels they used in the attack.
A military official said they were stripped of their weapons and navigation equipment. Russian media later quoted a military source saying the pirates were now likely dead.
UN Deputy High Commissioner for Refugees, T. Alexander Aleinikoff, talks to internally displaced people at a camp in Bossaso, a city in the northern state of Puntland, Somalia (file photo)
The United Nations refugee agency is appealing to all governments to grant asylum to people fleeing from central and southern Somalia. The UNHCR warns Somalis face many risks at home and are in need of international protection.
The UN refugee agency says it is alarmed at the worsening security and humanitarian situation in Somalia. It says conditions in Somalia have been steadily deteriorating for some time and are particularly acute in the central and southern parts of the country.
It says Somalis from these areas are in need of international protection and should be granted asylum even though they may not meet the criteria for refugee status under the 1951 Convention.
Under the Convention, UNHCR Spokeswoman, Melissa Fleming, explains a refugee is someone fleeing a war or specific persecution.
itnnews—20 November 2009 — Paul and Rachel Chandler, the British couple kidnapped by Somali pirates, say their captors are "losing patience".
A HARDLINE Islamist group that has seized control of the Somali town of Haradhere has vowed to find Paul and Rachel Chandler, the British couple held hostage by pirates since last October, and release them unconditionally.
The group, Hizbul Islam, captured Haradhere without a fight after the pirates fled on hearing that it was on its way. The Islamists are feared for their tough enforcement of sharia (Islamic law), including stoning for adultery and amputation for theft.
“We will search [for] the British hostages,” said Sheikh Mohamed Arus, a leading figure in Hizbul Islam, brandishing an AK-47 rifle. “If we see them, we will release them. We will fly them to their homeland without taking any ransom.”
The pirates’ decision to flee appears to have worsened the plight of the Chandlers, from Tunbridge Wells in Kent, who are both in poor health. Since their 38ft yacht, the Lynn Rival, was hijacked as they sailed towards Tanzania on October 23 there have been persistent reports that their physical and mental condition is in decline.
SANAA — Yemeni authorities arrested 45 Ethiopian and Somali migrants who had landed illegally in Yemen in hopes of slipping into oil-rich Saudi Arabia, the interior ministry said on Saturday.
It said the 35 Ethiopians and 10 Somalis were arrested on Friday not far from the capital, 170 kilometres (100 miles) from the south coast where illegal migrants usually land after perilous voyages.
They were arrested in the same area where 200 other migrants have been detained over the past several months, a ministry statement said.
African migrants, especially Ethiopians and Somalis fleeing poverty and unrest at home, generally slip into southern Yemen by boat before heading north towards the Saudi frontier.
