Conflicting reports over release of Cuban doctors by Somali militants

 



The Somali government has denied reports widely circulated by both local and international media that two Cuban doctors held captive for over a year by suspected Somali militants have been released.

“Somalia has denied that two Cuban doctors held hostage by Al-Shabaab were released. Our interview with Acting Minister of Foreign Affairs Ahmed Isse Awad goes on air in 10 minutes,” Prominent VOA journalist Harun Maruf said in a tweet.

Earlier, Maruf also tweeted that the Cuban government had also denied the release of the doctors, citing a report by AFP.

Reports by both AP and AFP earlier in the day indicated the doctors had been released. Both Kenyan and Somali media outlets widely reported on the story too.

The two Cuban doctors were abducted in a daring attack in the northeast Kenyan town of Mandera near the Somali border in April last year.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Cinema of Somalia

Image
Cinema of Somalia  Storytelling is an ancient custom in Somali culture. Love of cinema in Somalia is but a modern, visual incarnation and continuation of this well-established oral tradition. The earliest forms of public film display in Somalia were Italian newsreels of key events during the colonial period in Italian Somaliland. Examples of such works include Somalia: Gheledi (1913), Somalia italiana (1913), Somalia: Le bellezze del fiume Nebi (1913), Sotto la Croce del Sud - Somalia Italiana (1926), Visioni della Somalia italiana (1929) and Viaggio di S.M. il Re in Somalia (1934) In the late 1950s there was some collaboration between Rome's Cinecitta and the first Somali directors. As a consequence, in 1963 Hajji Cagakombe's Miyi Iyo Magaalo ("The Countryside and the City" or "Town & Village"), a Somali-Italian co-production, was the country's first full-length feature film Somaliwood A new generation of more entertainment-o
Read more

Heavy fighting erupts in Somali town near Kenyan border

Image
  Heavy fighting broke out overnight in a Somali town near the Kenyan border between Somali forces and those from the state of Jubbaland, as Somalia’s election troubles spill over into violence. Somalia’s information ministry in a statement early Monday accused Kenya-funded rebels of crossing into the town of Bulo Hawo and attacking Somali forces. But the Jubbaland vice president, Mohamud Sayid Adan, told reporters that Jubbaland forces stationed outside the town were attacked by what he called forces recently deployed to the region by the government in the capital, Mogadishu. Both sides claimed victory. The information ministry asserted that Somali forces were in control of the town and that nearly 100 of the suspected rebels had surrendered to Somali forces. But Information Minister Osman Abokor Dubbe later told reporters that five children had been killed and their mother wounded when a mortar round landed on their house. “Ordinary militias don't have mortars and missiles,” the
Read more

Somali Prime Minister announces new cabinet

Image
  Somalia's new prime minister announced his new Cabinet on Monday evening in the capital Mogadishu.  Speaking at the presidential palace flanked by his new ministers, Mohamed Hussein Roble said the new Cabinet consists of a deputy prime minister and 26 ministers, including four women. Fifteen of the new ministers (over 50%) are from the previous Cabinet, with Deputy Prime Minister Khadar Mohamed Gulaid, Finance Minister Abdirahman Duale Beyleh, Foreign Minister Ahmed Isse Awad, and Health Minister Fowzia Abiikar Nur all holding onto their posts. The new Cabinet also includes 17 state ministers and 26 deputy ministers. The new cabinet will need approval from the federal parliament. On Sept. 18, President Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed appointed Roble the country's new prime minister after parliament ousted Hassan Ali Khayre, his predecessor. The new prime minister and his Cabinet will have a brief mandate, as the Horn of African country's presidential and parliamentary elections
Read more