The Djibouti peace process is at risk of going “down the drain” and needs urgent support from the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC), the OIC chief said on Saturday.
Secretary-General Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu told a meeting of OIC foreign ministers that they needed to contribute troops, equipment and financial support to the African Union Mission to Somalia to prevent the collapse of the peace process when Ethiopia pulls out its troops from the country in the coming days.
“The Djibouti peace process, which remains the only credible political process currently under way in Somalia, in which the OIC is a major international stakeholder and facilitator, is under severe threat,” Ihsanoglu said.
PHOTO: AP
“Our heavy investment in the process, which produced the historic Djibouti Peace Agreement between the Transitional Federal Government and the coalition of the opposition ... must not be allowed to go down the drain and needs the full support of all the member states,” Ihsanoglu said.
Ihsanoglu also called on OIC members to offer up humanitarian assistance to Somalians and for the organization to open up an office in Mogadishu “as a symbol of our enduring engagement with Somalia.”
Ethiopia pledged on Saturday that it would not leave behind a power vacuum when it completed its troop withdrawal from Somalia in the coming days, two years after it invaded the country.
There are 3,600 Ugandan and Burundian African Union peacekeepers in Somalia, but they are ill-equipped and under-funded and have been unable to restore stability in the country.
Ethiopia invaded Somalia in 2006 to rescue an embattled transitional administration and oust the Islamic Courts Union, which had taken control of most of the country and started imposing a strict form of Shariah.
Ethiopia’s pullout was agreed upon by the Somali government and the more moderate wing of the Islamist-led political opposition during UN-sponsored reconciliation talks in Djibouti.
In Somalia, Islamic insurgents appeared to be scrambling for power, taking over several police stations in the capital as Ethiopian troops began to pull out, witnesses said.
Many fear the Ethiopian pullout — and last month’s resignation of Somalia’s president — will cause Islamic militant groups to fight among themselves for power, bringing even more chaos.
“We have to show commitment to do our part in security, we want to help people feel secure,” Abdirahim Issa Adow, a spokesman for one wing of the insurgency, told reporters on Saturday after deploying troops to three of Mogadishu’s 14 police stations.
His Union of Islamic Courts is not allied to the most powerful insurgent group, al-Shabab, which has taken over most of Somalia.
The US accuses al-Shabab of harboring the al-Qaeda-linked terrorists who blew up the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998. Many of the insurgency’s senior figures are Islamic radicals; some are on the US State Department’s list of wanted terrorists.
The Somali government controls only Baidoa, the seat of Parliament, and pockets of Mogadishu. There is no effective military or police force; some police bases are occupied by government forces and others are vacant. The three taken over on Saturday were vacated months ago.
READINESS: According to a survey of 2,000 people, 86 percent of Swedes believe the country is worth defending in the event of a military attack Swedes are stocking up on food items in case of war, as more conflict in Europe no longer feels like a distant possibility, and authorities encourage measures to boost readiness. At a civil preparedness fair in southwest Stockholm, 71-year-old Sirkka Petrykowska said that she is taking the prospect of hostilities seriously and preparing as much as she can. “I have bought a camping stove. I have taken a course on preservation in an old-fashioned way, where you can preserve vegetables, meat and fruit that lasts for 30 years without a refrigerator,” Petrykowska said. “I’ve set aside blankets for warmth, I
FRUSTRATIONS: One in seven youths in China and Indonesia are unemployed, and many in the region are stuck in low-productivity jobs, the World Bank said Young people across Asia are struggling to find good jobs, with many stuck in low-productivity work that the World Bank said could strain social stability as frustrations fuel a global wave of youth-led protests. The bank highlighted a persistent gap between younger and more experienced workers across several Asian economies in a regional economic update released yesterday, noting that one in seven young people in China and Indonesia are unemployed. The share of people now vulnerable to falling into poverty is now larger than the middle class in most countries, it said. “The employment rate is generally high, but the young struggle to
ENERGY SHIFT: A report by Ember suggests it is possible for the world to wean off polluting sources of power, such as coal and gas, even as demand for electricity surges Worldwide solar and wind power generation has outpaced electricity demand this year, and for the first time on record, renewable energies combined generated more power than coal, a new analysis said. Global solar generation grew by a record 31 percent in the first half of the year, while wind generation grew 7.7 percent, according to the report by the energy think tank Ember, which was released after midnight yesterday. Solar and wind generation combined grew by more than 400 terawatt hours, which was more than the increase in overall global demand during the same period, it said. The findings suggest it is
‘ARMED CONFLICT’: At least 21 people have died in such US attacks, while experts say the summary killings are illegal even if they target confirmed narcotics traffickers US forces on Friday carried out a strike on an alleged drug-smuggling boat off the coast of Venezuela, killing four people, US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth said. The latest strike, which Hegseth announced in a post on X, brings the number of such US attacks to at least four, leaving at least 21 people dead. An accompanying video shared by Hegseth showed a boat speeding across the waves before being engulfed in smoke and flames. “Four male narco-terrorists aboard the vessel were killed,” the Pentagon chief wrote. He said the strike “was conducted in international waters just off the
RSS