Somaliland: Risking torture for a better life abroad

Hargeisa, Somaliland - Outside his two bedroom house made of tin in the heart of Hargeisa, capital of the breakaway Somaliland region, Kosar Dhool cuts an exhausted figure burdened with events far heavier than his slim frame can bear.

The father of five has been receiving phone calls from his son, Hamza, who has been captured and held for ransom by human smugglers in an unknown location in Libya.

"He called to say they are going to take out his kidneys and sell them for money if I don't pay the $2,100 ransom," Dhool told Al Jazeera, sitting on a plastic chair under a tree that barely provided shade from the boiling midday sun. 

Hamza, 18, is a bright high school student with much promise ahead of him. He is well-liked in his neighbourhood and everyone here is in a state of shock at his capture. 

For the past two years, Dhool had been working extra shifts to save up enough money to send Hamza to university in the hope he would then be able to help the family support his younger siblings. 

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Obama's Pick to be US Ambassador to Somalia Withdraws

President Barack Obama's pick to be the first American ambassador to Somalia in nearly 25 years has withdrawn her nomination, the White House told lawmakers on Monday, an unexpected suspension in U.S. plans to deepen ties with the African nation plagued by violence and instability.

An administration official said Katherine Simonds Dhanani, a career diplomat with experience serving across Africa, turned down the nomination for personal reasons and that Obama will have to find another candidate. The official spoke on a condition of anonymity without authorization to speak on the record.

The U.S. Embassy closed in 1991 when Somalia's government collapsed in civil war, prompting the deployment of a U.S.-led U.N. peacekeeping mission. American troops withdrew from Somalia in 1994, months after the humiliating “Black Hawk Down” debacle when Somali militiamen shot down two U.S. helicopters. Read Full Article

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Fewer arrests but fear still lingers for Somaliland's press

Conditions for the press in the semi-autonomous republic of Somaliland may, on the surface, appear to be improving. But without a functioning media law to lend protection, and pending legislative elections, journalists remain wary of state harassment.
Authorities have, for instance, decreased the rate and duration of arbitrary detentions of journalists, Mohamoud Abdi Jama, chairman of the Somaliland Journalists Association (SOLJA), told me during a U.N.-led trip in March to meet officials, journalists, and civil society actors in the capital, Hargeisa. The purpose of the visit by U.N. agencies and media-related non-profit organisations was to assess the needs and conditions of the press in Somaliland. In 2012, when CPJ last visited Hargeisa, hardly a week would pass without authorities detaining journalists for unfavourable coverage. According to the association's chairman, between January and April 1 nine journalists were detained: half of what CPJ recorded over the same period in 2012.
Both Deputy-Minister of Information Shukri Harir Ismail and Mohamoud told me the flurry of arrests reduced due to greater interaction and negotiation with authorities. "This has also led to less long-term detentions," Mohamoud said, to the point where in "most cases journalists are held for a few hours."
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Yemen conflict affects Somaliland & nearby countries

People displaced by the civil war in Yemen are taking speedboats and ferries across the Gulf of Aden to reach neighboring African countries where refugee camps are already stretched thin, raising fears that prolonged fighting could strain humanitarian resources. Somaliland, a self-declared country in northern Somalia, has received 270 migrants from Yemen. A further 389 people have arrived in Puntland, another Somali breakaway state, according to the IOM. Djibouti, Somaliland and Puntland already host tens of thousands of refugees, according to the UNHCR. Djibouti is home to about 24,000 refugees, while Somaliland hosts roughly 9,000 displaced people. Somaliland’s foreign minister, Mohamed Yonis, said he is expecting to receive up to 2,000 Yemeni refugees and is in talks with the EU and USAid about providing assistance for them. “It will be a challenge – we have a lot of Ethiopian refugees in Somaliland, we have a lot of internally displaced people. But we hope the international community will come to the rescue,” said Yonis. Read More

Somaliland to Harvard: How this student beat the odds

He credits the dramatic change in his fortunes to Somaliland's Abaarso School, a very small boarding school he attended, which was founded in 2009 by an American hedge fund manager.

"I'm not the smartest kid in Somaliland but I've had [the] opportunity [to attend Abaarso]," said Adan, who received his Harvard acceptance letter, along with a full scholarship, this month and will begin his undergraduate studies in September.
The Abaarso boarding school has become something of a feeder school for elite universities. Adan, 20, is among a small number of underprivileged students who are increasingly getting accepted into the most prestigious American universities, like the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Carnegie Mellon and Georgetown.
Abaarso's founder, Jonathan Starr, is a former American hedge fund manager turned headmaster, who left his job in finance because he wanted to do something different.
A family connection led him to launch the school in Somaliland, a self-declared independent state in Somalia that is still recovering from decades of civil war and a severe drought. Read More