Introduction/Highlights

   The dispatch of a UN police and military mission numbering 550 to Somalia to guard humanitarian supplies and to monitor the fragile ceasefire around Mogadishu was being actively considered by the Security Council.  Conflicting reports on the security situation in Northern Somalia indicate, depending upon who is doing the reporting, that either the situation is relatively calm or that there is an increasing level of lawlessness throughout the country. Both assessments may have merit as it appears military actions are on the decline while banditry is on the rise.

Political & Economic Matters

   Ethiopia's 12 ethnic factions have agreed to form a single political group, and will hold a congress in Dire Dawa in July to draw up a common political program and establish a committee to promote development and humanitarian assistance in ethnic Somali areas of the Ogaden.

   A summit meeting attended by the heads of state of Djibouti, Kenya, Ethiopia, Eritrea and Sudan called on all armed factions in Somalia to permit delivery of food to an estimated 4.5 million starving people.  Seven of Somalia's armed factions were represented at the conference, which brought together representatives of governments and rebel organizations for the first time.  A UN-brokered ceasefire in Mogadishu, agreed last month, still appears to be holding, but many observers fear it could collapse at any time.  Thus far some 14,000 people have been killed during the five-month long struggle between rival warlords in the capital.  Since former dictator Mohamed Siad Barre was ousted some 15 months ago, Somalia has slid into chaos and anarchy.  Gunmen form rival clans have carved the country into tribal fiefdoms.

   Northern Somalia's President Abdurahman Ahmed Ah  has formed a cabinet with 17 ministers and is busy writing the country's new constitution.  The people of Northern Somalia are determined to maintain their independence, and will not rejoin southern Somalia under any circumstances.  The Provisional Government is maintaining good relations with neighboring countries and is actively soliciting foreign investment. 

   Somaliland's Finance Minister recently met with French officials in Paris and has reportedly been promised some sort of financial assistance.  The government plans to change its currency from the Somali Shilling to the Somali Dinar, and the French will help with this currency transition as well.

Security Situation

   The UN is recommending sending a police and military mission of 550 to Somalia to guard humanitarian supplies and monitor a fragile ceasefire around the capital of Mogadishu. If the truce between Mogadishu warlord General Mohamed Farah Aideed and his rival, Ah Mahdi Mohamad, the country's self-declared interim president, holds, the UN has pledged to raise US$12.5 million of emergency aid over a three-month period.

   Most of the conflict in Northern Somalia is centered around Berbera, where there is a full-blown power struggle between rival groups going on.  The rest of the country is relatively calm except for isolated acts of banditry and other forms of lawlessness.

   Many Northern Somalis have settled in the area around Dire Dawa in Ethiopia, and regularly travel back and forth across the border into Somaliland for trading and other purposes.

   UNHCR staff who have spent time visiting both sides of the border have noted that the security situation in the northwestern part of Somaliland appears to be worse than it is in eastern Hararghe.  A number of recent incidents illustrate the point:

• The second consignment of CARE/WFP food to Berbera was looted from stores at the port, and money raised from the sale of food from the first consignment (several million shillings) was stolen from the bank where it was on deposit.





• Many agencies in the area have had their vehicles stolen at gunpoint.  A German emergency medical team decided to pull out completely after having several of its vehicles stolen.





• Turn Key, the Nairobi-based contractors for the UNICEF funded Hargeisa water system rehabilitation project, have pulled out of the area due to the lack of security and what they call unfair pressure from their line ministry. The company had only completed the first stage "borchole" rehabilitation portion of the program.





• The OXFAM compound in Hargeisa was broken into by thieves who maliciously damaged all of the vehicles and equipment in the compound when they failed to hotwire the vehicle they intended to steal.




• The Ministry of Mines and National Resources in Hargeisa was robbed of 14 million shillings, their entire allocation of funds this year from the government.

   These incidents are indicative of the increasing level of lawlessness in the western part of Northern Somalia.  The interim government in Hargeisa appears to be losing its authority and the country is in danger of falling into the hands of numerous warlords and their militias.  Travel on the roads is fraught with danger from armed robbers and roadblocks set up to exact taxes from anyone passing through.  Under these circumstances, concern is growing that it will be increasingly difficult to implement the planned repatriation program for returnees from Ethiopia.

   A Philippine sailor was killed when he resisted seizure of two Taiwanese fishing boats by an armed faction of the Djibouti-based Somali Salvation Democratic Front (SSDF) off the coast of Somalia.  The SSDF has warned that foreign boats fishing in Somali waters would be attacked and seized. Offenders have included boats from Japan, India, Pakistan, Greece, France, North and South Korea, Russia, Italy and Taiwan.

   Kenya has ordered a major security operation against Somali bandits who have killed 38 people in the northwest of the country.  Army and paramilitary units will be sent to the Garissa and Tana river districts where most of the killings have taken place.

   A small Cessna aircraft belonging to the British aid group Save the Children Fund (SCF) was hijacked to Djibouti by five Somali bandits from an airstrip in Erigavo in Northern Somalia.  SCF is one of a handful of groups working in Northern Somalia.  A British woman and New Zealand pilot on board were unharmed.

   The hijack follows several attacks on foreign aid workers in Somalia.  A Belgian International Red Cross worker was shot dead in Mogadishu late last year, and a Bulgarian UN doctor was murdered in the northern town of Bossaso earlier this year.  Several Somali aid workers have also been killed.