Somali fighters stone 'rape victim'

A Somali girl who said she had been raped has been stoned to death in Somalia after being accused of adultery, a human rights group has said. Amnesty International said in a press release on Friday that the victim, Aisha Ibrahim Duhulow, had been 13 years old - not 23 as earlier reports had suggested.

Duhulow was stoned to death on October 27 by dozens of men in a stadium packed with 1,000 spectators in the southern port city of Kismayo, Amnesty International and Somali media reported, citing witnesses. The armed group in charge of Kismayo had accused her of adultery after she reported that three men had raped her, Amnesty said.

"This child suffered a horrendous death at the behest of the armed opposition groups who currently control Kismayo," David Copeman, Amnesty International's Somalia campaigner, said in a statement. Initial local media reports said Duhulow was 23, but her father told Amnesty International she was 13.

Al Jazeera English

A Life On Hold

An intimate portrait of Omar, a 17 year old stranded in a refugee camp since the 2011 war in Libya. The film offers a unique perspective of one person amongst thousands waiting for a chance to start their life again in a safe country.

When war broke out earlier this year in Libya, thousands of refugees from countries such as Somalia, Sudan, and Eritrea, who were living in or transiting through the country at the time, were forced to flee for their lives yet again. They are now waiting in refugee camps along the Tunisian and Egyptian borders - unable to return home due to war or persecution, unable to return to Libya due to ongoing violence and discrimination, and unable to stay in Tunisia or Egypt, countries both undergoing their own political upheavals.

A Life On Hold on Vimeo

UN to Announce Somalia Famine Has Spread

The United Nations is expected to announced Monday that the famine in Somalia has spread to a sixth region in the drought-stricken country.

A U.N. official has told VOA the famine now includes the Bay region in south Somalia. Bay is a major food-producing region of Somalia and the official said food production there has dropped 82 percent. Many Somali refugees who flee to camps in the capital, Mogadishu, and neighboring Ethiopia and Kenya come from the Bay region.

In a release this week, the United Nations cited reports that the al-Qaida-linked militant group al-Shabab has restricted movement in the Bay area. The Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs is also expected to announce that more than half of Somalia's population – about four million people – now need urgent aid.

The United Nations says more than 12 million people in the Horn of Africa need immediate assistance. The U.N. has also declared a famine in the Somali regions Bakool, Lower Shabelle, Middle Shabelle, the Afgoye Corridor and parts of Mogadishu. Most of the famine areas are under the control of al-Shabab, which has banned most foreign aid groups from operating in its strongholds. (VOA)

Somalia famine has killed '29,000 children'

Claim by US officials follows declaration of three new famine zones by UN and warning that more areas are vulnerable. US officials say that the famine in Somalia has killed more than 29,000 children in the last 90 days.

Separately, the UN has declared that three new regions in Somalia are famine zones, making a total of five regions affected by famine thus far in the Horn of Africa country. The UN had said last month two regions were suffering from famine.

The Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), the UN's food arm, has said that famine is likely to spread across all regions of Somalia's south in the next four to six weeks.

Famine, as defined by the UN, refers to situations when at least 20 per cent of households face food shortages so severe that they are unable to cope with it and more than two people out of 10 000 people die daily. Additionally, famine conditions are likely to persist until December, FAO said. Across Somalia, 3.7 million people are in crisis out of a population of 7.5 million, the UN says.

Al Jazeera

United Nations Declares Famine In Southern Somalia

The United Nations has declared a famine in Somalia as east Africa continues to suffer through its worst drought in 50 years. The UN said that in two regions of southern Somalia, Bakool and Lower Shabelle, the rate of serious malnutrition among children was now high enough to be considered a famine.

More than 30 percent of children in the region are now acutely malnourished. Around four in 10,000 children are now dying every day. It is the first time in almost twenty years that Somalia has seen famine inside its borders.

"Across the country nearly half of the Somali population - 3.7 million people - are now in crisis, of whom an estimated 2.8 million people are in the south," the UN said in a statement. "Consecutive droughts have affected the country in the last few years, while the ongoing conflict has made it extremely difficult for agencies to operate and access communities in the south of the country," it added.

The UN also warned that famine could spread to all eight regions of southern Somalia in two months if more is not done to halt the crisis.

More on Huffington Post

Shh! There’s a Secret CIA Prison in Somalia

With President Barack Obama having issued an executive order banning secret Central Intelligence Agency prisons and then-CIA Director Leon Panetta having stated that “CIA no longer operates detention facilities or black sites,” one might think a credible report that the CIA is still operating such a prison would make the front page of every newspaper in the country and be covered on all major television news programs. Alas, in 21st-century America, where the news media are the handmaidens of the state, the story has largely been ignored; and those outlets that have deemed it worthy of coverage have done so in such a way as to play down its revelations and play up the government’s denials.

On July 12 The Nation published a lengthy article by Jeremy Scahill exposing a secret CIA prison in Mogadishu, Somalia. Scahill’s report was based on an in-person investigation of the allegations, undertaken at great personal risk.
Scahill found that the CIA is using “a secret prison buried in the basement of Somalia’s National Security Agency (NSA) headquarters, where prisoners suspected of being [Somali militant group Al Shabab members or of having links to the group are held.” The prison houses not just suspects captured within Somalia but also those picked up in Kenya (and possibly other countries) and rendered to Somalia for interrogation.

Read the full article on BlackListedNews.com