Eleven militiamen were murdered Sunday in a battle to control a checkpoint south of Mogadishu, press reports said yesterday. The fighting began after a group of militiamen used heavy weapons to take control of the checkpoint from rival militiamen. “The incident took place late Sunday, claiming 11 men and wounding scores others,” said Hassan Mohamed Hashi, a former army officer.
“The battle ...was purely motivated by greed,” said Ahmed Yasin Mohamud, a resident of the area. According to the reports, the attack was prompted by residents’ complaints that the militiamen were charging them high protection fees while failing to curb insecurity in southern Mogadishu.
United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan has urged Somali faction leaders to show the needed political will and agree on procedures leading to reconciliation and the establishment of a transitional federal government by the end of July, the UN Media Center said. The deadline was set by the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD which is currently sponsoring the Somali peace talks in Kenya.
Annan said in a new report that the active engagement of the UN Security Council and the putting in place of the Arms Embargo Monitoring Group could provide much-needed support for peace and national reconciliation. “The two-month time frame, given by the IGAD Ministers to conclude the Conference, places extraordinary pressure on the Somali parties and the region. Somali leaders have until the end of July to reach agreement on several contentious issues and form an inclusive transitional federal government for Somalia. It is incumbent upon them to demonstrate the necessary political will and make difficult decisions,” he said.
“Despite the absence of governance structures and other difficulties, however, Somalis have created an informal banking system, initiated university programs, established education facilities and built a modern communications system,” Annan said.
In light of these achievements, he urged the international community to make up the $91.2 million shortfall in the 2004 Consolidated Inter-Agency Appeal for Somalia of $119 million, “so as to allow the effective implementation of a full, coherent and balanced humanitarian and peace-building program.”
Djibouti’s Interior Minister Abdoulkader Dualeh Wais has disclosed that his government has begun repatriating about 521 Somali asylum seekers whose applications to stay in the country have been rejected, press reports said. “Over a period of five months, the country’s refugee status determination commission has sifted through 8,000 asylum applications to determine who should stay. About half the applications were rejected. Those remaining at Awr Aousa, whose asylum requests had been accepted, were more than 4,000 Somalis and 100 Ethiopians, who would be transferred to other refugee camps in the country. The Awr Aousa camp will be closed,” Wais said.
Meanwhile, the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has said that most of the 16,000 refugees from the northern region of Somaliland who were living in Djibouti should be able to return home by the end of 2005, The UNHCR representative in Djibouti, William Collins Asare, said his agency had repaired some infrastructure and set up some services in Somaliland to assist the refugees in resettling. Most of the Somali refugees fled their home country in 1991. Other refugees arrived following the 1977 war between Somalia and Ethiopia.
