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  Activists from several opposition groups, as well as members of the Council of Presidential Candidates (CPC), called off a protest they had planned for Feb. 26 at Mogadishu's Daljirka Dahsoon (Unknown Soldier) Monument. The groups in question canceled the action after the federal government agreed to appoint an independent committee to investigate the Feb. 19 against oppositionists who had gathered in the Somali capital to denounce President Mohamed Abdullahi Farmaajo's remaining in office beyond the end of his term. The federal government also accepted activists' demand to organize a rally within 10 days; however, the date and venue of the future gathering remain unclear. Authorities will almost certainly maintain a heightened security posture in central Mogadishu, and near the Daljirka Dahsoon in particular, as a precaution over the coming days despite the cancellation of the Feb. 26 protest. Localized traffic disruptions could occur in some areas.

  Somali presidential candidates and opposition alliance parties planned to hold a major demonstration against what they see as the illegitimate rule of Mohamed Abdullahi Farmajo, whose presidential mandate expired on Feb. 8. On the night before the protests, however, the hotel where two former Somali presidents were staying came under heavy fire — an attack former Prime Minister Hassan Khaire described as an assassination attempt and former President Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed said was carried out by government forces. The attack resulted in the death of several of the former presidents’ bodyguards, who successfully stopped the assault after a 30-minute firefight. The next morning when the demonstration started, it too came under attack, with former PM Khaire pointing the finger at Farmajo-allied paramilitary units for firing live bullets on peaceful demonstrators led by him and other opposition leaders. This was followed by heavy shelling of Mogadishu’s Aden Adde International Airpor

  Gunfire and rockets exploded on Friday in Mogadishu as Somali government forces clashed with opposition supporters angered by delayed elections, fighting that could split the military along clan lines and strengthen the al Qaida-linked insurgency. Video taken showed showed civilians in facemasks - accompanied by friendly soldiers in red berets with ammunition belts wrapped around them - waving Somali flags scattering before gunfire erupted as well as heavier explosions. “Many forces heavily attacked us, I am now on my chest in an alley. This is a massacre,” protester Farah Omar said. He said Turkish-trained special forces troops known as Gorgor were among those attacking demonstrators. Another video showed flames where a rocket propelled grenade hit a row of shops opposite the airport entrance. The spillover of political rivalries into open conflict will dismay Somalia’s allies and play into the hands of the al Qaeda-linked al Shabaab insurgency, which mounts attacks on civilians aro

  African Union Commission Chief Moussa Faki Mahamat and UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called on Somali leaders Tuesday to resume talks to end the current stalemate on the country's next elections.  “The Chairperson and the Secretary-General call on Somali leaders to resume dialogue and work in a spirit of compromise to overcome the last political hurdles to inclusive elections as soon as possible, and respect the agreement they reached on 17 September 2020,” the leaders said in a joint statement on Tuesday. The hard-won gains in the Horn of African country in recent years are a testimony to the firm determination of the people of Somalia towards lasting peace and prosperity, following decades of instability, the AU and the UN chiefs said. They added that their commitment to support the government and people of Somalia on their path to peace and prosperity will continue. This comes as the country witnessed a political turmoil after President Mohamed Abdullah Mohamed’s const

  Somalia is in a state of political and constitutional limbo as various stakeholders interpret the failure to hold elections differently. One hand are those who believe that the parliamentary resolution passed last September to allow the president, the Senate and the Lower House to stay in office if the country fails to hold an election was right, while on the other are those who say that extension of the term is illegal; that a mere parliamentary resolution is not enough. President Mohamed Abdullahi Farmaajo's four-year term expired on February 8 but he has called a Federal and State Level Summit on February 15 in Garowe, Puntland to break the impasse. President Farmaajo insists that his government is ready to implement the September 17, 2020 agreement with the federal member states but opposition members such Abdirahman Abdishakur Warsame, the leader of Wadajir Party, accuse him of being an obstacle to the elections and demanded the establishment of Traditional National Council

  Somalis should have been awaiting the results of a national election this week. Instead, the Feb. 8 vote never took place, because the country’s leaders could not agree on the ground rules for holding it. Not only has the failure to reach a compromise undermined the democratic process, but it has also made Somalia more vulnerable to security threats and regional rivalries.  Although President Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed—widely known by the nickname Farmajo—assured citizens that there would be no power vacuum, he is in no position to make promises. His term officially expired on Monday, when the election was set to take place. While he may have had plans to stay on as interim leader, opposition leaders are refusing to recognize him as president. Instead, an alliance of opposition parties is calling for the creation of a transitional government. It’s not the first time Somalia has delayed this election. In fact, it was supposed to be held in November 2020, but in June last year, the coun

  As the clock ticked towards 12am on Monday, young men counted the seconds to midnight before firing a hail of bullets into the calm dark skies over the Somali capital to celebrate the end of President Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed’s term in office. Rewind four years, and young men in Mogadishu were also turning their guns upwards but for the exact opposite reason – to express their joy at Mohamed, popularly known as Farmaajo, taking office. Remarkably, in a country where clan loyalty runs deep, the crowd was celebrating the election defeat of their own clansmen. Running on a nationalist platform and a promise to wipe out the al-Qaeda-linked armed group al-Shabab, Farmaajo – a bespectacled Somali-American who lived for decades in Buffalo, New York – had defeated two former presidents who hail from the coastal city to clinch the top seat in the 2017 election. Similar scenes were witnessed in several cities across the Horn of Africa country. Even in neighbouring Kenya’s Dadaab, home to one

  Somalia’s divided political leaders have failed to agree on how to proceed with elections in emergency talks, a government minister has announced, just days before the end of the president’s current term President Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed flew back to the capital from the central town of Dhusamareb, without a deal on the staffing of regional electoral commissions, Information Minister Osman Dubbe said late on Friday, with Somalia likely to miss a February 8 deadline to choose a new president. “The government offered to negotiate and settle all the disputed issues, but some brothers have failed to understand, and refused to resolve the issues,” Dubbe told reporters in Mogadishu late on Friday. “The government has shown flexibility to compromise, gentleness and readiness to negotiate, but some leaders tried to exploit that openness to seek more. That will not work.” Mohamed, who is seeking a second term in office, is expected to announce another round of talks at a joint sitting of Pa

  Ali Jamac Dhoodi thought his son was working as a security guard in Qatar, helping prepare for next year's soccer World Cup. Then one day last April, officials from Somalia's National Intelligence Agency arrived with $10,000 in cash. They told him his son had died - not in Qatar, but in Eritrea, one of the world's most secretive countries. "They showed me a picture from their WhatsApp and asked me, 'Do you know this picture and his full name?' I said, 'Yes he is my son,'" Dhoodi, 48, told Reuters. "They said to me 'Your son died'. I cried." They gave him the money, and told him not to ask questions. Ali's son was one of three young Somali men whose families told Reuters they had been recruited by Somalia's federal government for jobs in Qatar, only to surface in Eritrea, where they were sent to serve in a military force against their will. Two other families said their sons had simply disappeared. The apparent secret rec

  The parents began gathering in Mogadishu’s streets on Jan. 20. Soon, reports began trickling in about similar protests in other towns and cities across the country. The spark was an acknowledgment made by Abdisalan Yusuf Guled, the former deputy head of Somalia’s National Intelligence and Security Agency, on Jan. 18 that 370 Somali soldiers had died fighting in the Ethiopian province of Tigray.  The head of the Somali parliament’s foreign affairs committee asked Somali president Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed “Farmaajo” to investigate the issue and to clarify the whereabouts of Somali troops sent to Eritrea for training Both Farmaajo’s government, for its part, and Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed’s Ethiopian government denied the presence of Somali forces in Tigray. Somalia’s information minister, Osman Abukar Dubbe, appeared on state television and said that no Somali forces were involved in Tigray and suggested that Farmaajo’s opposition had fabricated the charges. The Somali government tweet