U N I T E D  N A T I O N S
Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs
Integrated Regional Information Network for Central and Eastern Africa

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Fax: +254 2 622129
e-mail: irin@ocha.unon.org


HORN OF AFRICA
IRIN-HOA Weekly Round-up 56
22 - 28 September 2001


CONTENTS:

SOMALIA: UN evacuated over war-risk insurance lapse
SOMALIA: Gedo Region "worst affected" in Somalia
SOMALIA: Al-Ittihad's US assets frozen
SOMALIA: President says terrorist individuals "may be present"
SOMALIA: Demonstrators condemn US policy
SOMALIA-USA: Somali held in connection with US attacks
ETHIOPIA: Government accuses Al-Ittihad of Bin Laden links
ETHIOPIA: Water emergency in drought-hit areas
ERITREA: Ruling party explains arrests
ERITREA: Asmara University reopens
DJIBOUTI: Security tightened after US attacks


SOMALIA: UN evacuated over war-risk insurance lapse

All international UN staff were withdrawn from Somalia on Monday after
war-risks insurance coverage for all UN flights was discontinued by the
insurance company. The lapse of the war-risk coverage occurred "due to the
enormous insurance claims arising out of the attacks in the USA", a UN
statement said on Monday. United Nations Resident and Humanitarian
Coordinator for Somalia Randolph Kent told IRIN the full implications of
the global financial consequences of the terrorist attacks in the US on 11
September were not yet known, but may make humanitarian operations more
expensive. However, he emphasised that the evacuation had nothing to do
with security in Somalia, saying the UN remained committed to increasing
its presence in Somalia as soon as possible. He said he was frustrated
that the evacuation would be widely perceived as a reflection of the UN's
attitude to security, rather than a technical problem. [See IRIN interview
with Randolph Kent, UN Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator for Somalia
http://www.reliefweb.int/IRIN/cea/countrystories/somalia/20010925d.phtml ]

SOMALIA: Gedo Region "worst affected" in Somalia

Drought, insecurity and the closure of the Kenya-Somalia border have all
contributed to increased levels of severely malnourished children in Gedo
Region, which has the most serious humanitarian situation in Somalia. The
European Union-funded and FAO-implemented Food Security Analysis Unit
(FSAU) said in its September nutritional update that there was "little
doubt that the health and overall welfare of the population of Gedo Region
is already the worst in Somalia... Sheer numbers of malnourished children
presenting at health facilities, and observations during screenings for
general rations act to reinforce this suggestion".

Meanwhile, the report also warned of a declining nutrition situation in in
the towns and poor pastoral villages of northeastern Somalia. FSAU said
health facilities, which had previously been recording low malnutrition
levels as well as low children attendance figures, "are already noting a
rising trend". The major urban centres in the self-declared autonomous
region of Puntland - Bosaso port and Galcayo - continued to experience
increased pressure from migrant labourers. Prices had risen steeply,
partly due to inflation, but also because of "the economic downturn in
Puntland occasioned by the livestock ban [imposed by the Gulf Arab states
in September 2000 in an attempt to control Rift Valley fever] and lately
the mounting political tension". [FSAU updates are posted on
http:/www.unsomalia.org/unsomalia/reliefweb and
http:www.who.int/eha/disasters]

SOMALIA: Al-Ittihad's US assets frozen

The US assets of the Somali based Islamic group Al-Ittihad al-Islami
(AIAI) were ordered frozen on Monday by US President George Bush on the
suspicion that the group is linked to terrorist activities, Agence
France-Presse (AFP) said on Monday. Al-Ittihad is one on a list of
organisations whose assets have been targeted by the US as a consequence
of the terrorist attacks in the US on 11 September. Regional analysts told
AFP that they were unaware of any direct link between AIAI and either
Osama bin Laden or the Al-Qa'idah group, which he allegedly heads and
which is suspected of involvement in the attacks in Washington and New
York. Little is known about the fundamentalist group whose name means
Islamic Union and was set up in the region early 1990s, with the aim of
establishing a hardline Islamic state in Somalia.

Al-Ittihad is widely credited with establishing Islamic Courts in the
capital Mogadishu in recent years but is said to have handed over the
running of the courts to the Transitional National Government (TNG), AFP
said. Many of its militiamen are now believed to have been integrated into
the TNG's police forces. Regional analysts told AFP that the organisation
is believed to have maintained training camps at Ras Kamboni in southern
Somalia and Las Quoay in northeastern Somalia. However, Abdullahi Duale,
minister of information in the self-declared state of Somaliland,
northwestern Somalia, told IRIN that Al-Ittihad was not present despite
media reports - "In Somaliland there has never been a problem with
Al-Ittihad, or any armed fundamentalist groups, and there are no
operational camps and no international connections."

SOMALIA: President says terrorist individuals "may be present"

Interim President Abdiqassim Salad Hassan has said his security forces
have no knowledge of active terrorist cells inside southern Somalia,
although he could not rule out the presence of individuals involved in
terrorist actions. In a telephone interview with IRIN from Mogadishu, he
said there had been no direct discussions between US intelligence and his
government, "but we know that in southern Somalia right now we don't have
such terrorist cells... Maybe individuals". He said the Transitional
National Government had offered to cooperate with the US, and needed
assistance with information-gathering and security. Abdiqassim said he did
not personally think there was an "international linkage" when American
soldiers were killed in Mogadishu in 1993, but attributed it to the
actions of Somali warlords. On being asked to define his views on the
Al-Ittihad organisation - whose assets have been targeted by the US as an
organisation linked to terrorist activities - Abdiqassim told IRIN that he
shared the view of the international community when it came to terrorism.
"Our definition of terrorism is the same.... Terrorists are those people
who are engaged in acts of destruction and killing of innocent people, and
anyone engaged in that activity should be dealt with and should be
eradicated." [For full interview see Somalia: IRIN interview with interim
President Abdiqassim Salad Hassan
http://www.reliefweb.int/IRIN/cea/countrystories/somalia/20010926.phtml ]

SOMALIA: Demonstrators condemn US policy

Hundreds of Somalis on Sunday demonstrated in the capital, Mogadishu,
against US foreign policy, despite efforts by the Transitional National
Government to stop it, and condemnation of the US attacks by Somali Muslim
clerics. Demonstrators gathered at a sports field in south Mogadishu
chanting anti-American slogans and shouting support for Osama bin Laden,
widely believed to be behind the 11 September terrorist attacks, news
agencies said. Meanwhile, the local Mogadishu media said photographs of
Bin Laden's photos had become a booming business for entrepreneurs in the
capital.

However, on Wednesday, Mogadishu religious leaders, who had been holding a
meeting on the terrorist attacks in the United States, condemned them as
un-Islamic, one of the participants told IRIN. Shaykh Sharif Shaykh
Muhyiddin said Islam "neither condones nor sanctions what happened in
America". He described the attacks as "outrageous". Islam opposed any form
of destruction, particularly the destruction of innocent human lives, he
added. He also cautioned that "a wrong should not be righted with another
wrong". "It would be an injustice for Muslims to be unduly punished" for
the actions of few misguided individuals, he said.

SOMALIA-USA: Somali held in connection with US attacks

An ethnic Somali US citizen has been detained without bail in Washington
after his name and phone number appeared on a Washington road map found in
a car registered to a man identified by the FBI as one of the hijackers
who commandeered the American Airlines flight which crashed into the
Pentagon. Mohammed Abdi of Virginia was described by prosecutors as an
essential witness who "may be more", Associated Press (AP) said on
Wednesday. Abdi's lawyer insisted that the former airline food worker had
no connection to the 11 September terrorist attacks in the US. Abdi was
arrested on forgery charges unrelated to the attacks. The judge
acknowledged that the charges against Abdi were ordinary, but said the
connections to the attacks, even if tenuous, required him to err on the
side of caution in denying bail.

SOMALIA: Premier admits disagreements

The prime minister of the Transitional National Government (TNG) of
Somalia, Ali Khalif Galayr, has admitted the existence of differences
reported between him, the president and the Transitional National Assembly
(TNG), a senior official in the prime minister's office told IRIN. Galayr
had made the admission during an appearance on HornAfrik television, but
said that all issues had now been resolved, HornAfrik reported on 22
September. Galayr had reportedly complained that the TNA and the president
were usurping powers assigned to the prime minister's office, sources told
IRIN.

TNA sources, however, told said that disagreements within the TNG were far
from over. "If Ali Khalif says they are over, he is being disingenuous. He
and the president may have talked, but there is a lot of resentment in
parliament over how this government is being run." There was a real
possibility that some parliamentarians might table a motion of no
confidence in the government, a TNA member told IRIN.

ETHIOPIA: Government accuses Al-Ittihad of Bin Laden links

The Ethiopian government has accused the Islamist group, Al-Ittihad
Al-Islami, of having direct links with Osama bin Laden, widely held as the
prime suspect in the terrorist attacks in the US on 11 September. The
Ethiopian foreign ministry spokesman, Yemane Kidane, told Agence
France-Presse (AFP) that evidence had been collected when Ethiopia
launched an attack against Al-Ittihad inside Somalia in 1997. "We have
documents and pictures of dead bodies of some Afghans and Arabs when we
launched an attack against the Al-Ittihad Al-Islami group inside Somalia
in 1997," Yemane was quoted as saying. Al-Ittihad is one of the groups
named on the US Federal Bureau of Investigations' most wanted list, and is
described by news agencies as a quasi-clandestine fundamentalist
organisation formed in the early 1990s to set up a hardline Islamic state
in Somalia. Yemane charged that Al-Ittihad had also launched a series of
military attacks on Ethiopia, as well as "plotting with other
anti-Ethiopian elements to wreak havoc and achieve its goals under the
barrel of the gun". The spokesman reiterated Ethiopia's readiness to join
the fight against any terrorist group, and said it had been fighting
Al-Ittihad since the mid-1990s.

ETHIOPIA: Water emergency in drought-hit areas

If October rains are as poor as the seasonal Gu rains earlier in the year,
conditions will become critical in the Ethiopian Somali region, Somalia,
northwestern Eritrea and northern Kenya, the UNDP Emergencies Unit in
Ethiopia (EUE) warned in its August-September humanitarian update.
Emergency water needs in Warder, Degeh Bur, Gode, Afder and Liben zones in
southeastern Ethiopia were an ongoing concern for humanitarian agencies,
the report said.

The local administration had detailed exhaustion of shallow wells and
birkas (reservoirs) in many of the areas, and decreasing borehole
productivity. Although some rain had been reported in the last few weeks,
"it remains to be seen whether these rains will be sufficient to relieve
pressure on pastoralists in areas still recovering from the 1999-2000
drought", EUE said. It pointed out that demands on increasingly scarce
water sources had been exacerbated by "an influx of drought migrants from
affected areas of north-central Somalia, who are coming with their
livestock". Recent climate outlooks for Ethiopia show probabilities for
below-normal rainfall over southern Ethiopia for the period
September-December 2001.

ERITREA: Ruling party explains arrests

Eritrea's ruling party, the Eritrean People's Front for Democracy and
Justice (PFDJ), has explained why it arrested 11 members of the so-called
G-15 reform group last week. In a statement posted on its Shaebia web site
on Wednesday, the PFDJ said the G-15, all former senior members of the
PFDJ, began plotting the removal of Eritrean President Isayas Aferwerki in
May 2000 just as Eritrean armed forces were retreating in the face of a
major Ethiopian offensive designed to end the two-year border war between
the two countries. The G-15 move was, the statement said, "an act of
betrayal", which could have been prosecuted at the time, but which the
government chose instead to treat "as an inevitable aberration that crops
up in times of difficulty". However, despite the leniency shown by the
government, the reformists had persisted in "secret machinations", said
the statement. All 15 dissenters have been sacked from the government, and
last week 11 of them were arrested. Of the remaining four members, three
are in the United States, while the fourth has recanted and rejoined the
government.

Meanwhile, the World Association of Newspapers and the World Editors Forum
have written a letter of protest to Eritrean President Isayas Afewerki to
express their "serious concern at the government's closure of Eritrea's
eight private newspapers". The letter was sent in response to the
indefinite closure on government orders of the country's free press last
week.

ERITREA: Asmara University reopens

Asmara University has reopened to allow students to register for the
upcoming academic year due to begin on 8 October, Agence France Presse
(AFP) reported on Thursday. Many of the students returned to Asmara last
week after attending a controversial summer work camp in eastern Eritrea.
At least two of them died of heatstroke while in the camps, situated in
Eritrea's arid desert lands where temperatures regularly climb to over the
40 degrees centigrade. An original work programme which the students were
meant to take part in had to be cancelled following widespread student
protest over the arrest of their union president, Semere Kesete, on 31
July. Kesete was apprehended after making a speech in which he criticised
both the summer work programme itself and government interference in
university affairs. Ten days later hundreds of students were rounded up
and sent to the desert camp, 30 km south of the port city of Massawa. AFP
reported that the students appeared to be in good shape and glad to be
back in Asmara. Kesete, meanwhile, remains in prison.

DJIBOUTI: Security tightened after US attacks

Djibouti's security forces have significantly increased security measures
around the country in the wake of the September 11 terrorist in the US.
The number of police officers around the US embassy has been doubled,
while oil company installations and banks are now under tight
surveillance, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported on Wednesday. More
barbed wire has been set up around the runways at Djibouti airport, which
serves as a civilian airport, but also houses a significant French
military presence. It has been suggested in recent days that Djibouti, by
virtue of its location on the Red Sea, close to the Gulf, may be called on
for logistical support by the Americans if they decide to pursue
retaliatory attacks in the region. Djibouti was used by the Americans
during the Gulf War and also during their peacekeeping operation in
Somalia.

Djibouti is surrounded by countries that have been placed on a US list of
having terrorist connections, including Somalia, Ethiopia and Eritrea.
Djibouti is a magnet for economic migrants, as well those fleeing their
own country for political or criminal reasons, Djibouti's chief of
cabinet, Ismail Tani, recently told IRIN. He said as well as overburdening
the city's infrastructure, it was causing security problems.


Nairobi, 28 September 2001


[IRIN-HOA: Tel: +254 2 622147 Fax: +254 2 622129 e-mail:
irin-hoa@ocha.unon.org]


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Copyright (c) UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs 2001


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