Editors note:I’ve been away so hopefully will be able to catch up with the news in a bunch of short posts this morning.
“Somali pirate” greeted by Rep. Keith Ellison in forum to protect money transfer system to Africa. http://www.minnpost.com/community-sketchbook/2014/05/actor-barkhad-abdi-joins-ellison-protect-money-transfer-system-somali-c
The banks (and the feds) fear, of course, that the money being sent from Mom & Pop money transfer companies will end up in the hands of terrorists.
Rules designed to keep money out of the hands of terrorists could soon cut off support to millions of ordinary East Africans too. Last week, another financial institution — Merchants Bank of California — started closing accounts belonging to companies that collect money from African immigrants in the United States and send it to Somalia, Eritrea, Ethiopia, and other African countries.
The money-transmitter companies function like smaller versions of Western Union and MoneyGram, but they can send money to far-flung African villages that the big guys don’t serve. They rely on banks to make the international wire transfers necessary to get the money there. It’s part of a worldwide system of informal financial transactions between residents of impoverished countries and the friends and relatives living abroad who regularly send them money. The World Bank estimates that immigrants will send home $436 billion this year.
Minnesota Rep. Keith Ellison is one of the chief advocates for keeping the money flowing to Somalia. And, the more refugees we resettle, the more money that flows out in remittances to the third world.
This is very good news! Two weeks ago we told you of the thousands of Somalis deported from Saudi Arabia as it attempts to un-diversify itself, and now it appears they will get a warm welcome in Mogadishu.
Time to rebuild the once beautiful Mogadishu. http://borgenproject.org/mogadishu-sees-rapid-growth-and-development-as-somali-diaspora-returns-home/
Surely our critics think I’m being snarky, but I am not—many of these returning Somalis have gained skills that can now be put to use repairing their country. And, surely al-Shabaab will not have the numbers to defeat the returnees if those returning have a backbone!
Saciid Qorsheel, Minister of Land & Air Transport of the Somali government talked to the press at Mogadishu’s international airport and declared that the government is pleased to support the deportees returning to the country.
The Minister said at the airport that they are ready to prepare tents for the immigrants being sent back from foreign countries so they can have somewhere to seek refuge within their country.
“We will provide full accommodation for the deportees.” Said Saciid Qorsheel, Minister of Land & Air Transport
Recently, Somali immigrants have been deported from many countries and returned to the capital city Mogadishu, especially the ones coming back from the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
I’ll be watching for the squawking from the UNHCR which will surely oppose a large return to Somalia because it undercuts their work of continuing to spread Somali “refugees” throughout the west!
Remember back in January the post about Somalis plotting in Indonesia about how to break into Australia, here— just give them a plane ticket to Mogadishu! Put them to work!
Half a million expected to return home in three years! Is it time now to stop the flow of Somali “refugees” into the West? Sure sounds like it!
Another boat full of Somalis washes up in Italy over the weekend. UNHCR should pack them up and take them to their safe zones in Somalia! Get them to work fighting for and rebuilding Somalia!
The Kenyan government has threatened to close one of the largest refugee camps in the world, but so far the UN has persuaded the government (fearful of more terrorists in the camp) to let the migration back to Somalia happen voluntarily.
Here is the news from last week at Xinhua News (hat tip: Joanne):
DADAAB, Kenya, Nov. 25 (Xinhua) — The UN refugee agency UNHCR on Monday said some Somali refugees living in the northern Kenyan camps are willing to return home once they get support.
UNHCR official Mans Nyberg said the Kenyan government did not order the closure of the Dadaab refugee camp as reported by media.
Some refugees had turned up to the UNHCR offices in Dadaab, the world’s largest refugee settlement, to seek more information on their return, the official said.
[….]
The UNHCR and the Kenyan and Somali governments on Nov. 10 signed an agreement on the repatriation of Somali refugees. Up to 80,000 Somali refugees have spontaneously returned to south- central Somalia since January.
Also, last week the UN has identified three priority safe areas for returnees where they will be supplied with the basics to rebuild their lives.
NAIROBI (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – The United Nations refugee agency (UNHCR) has identified three priority areas to which it will help Somali refugees return home from Kenya, a senior official said on Tuesday.
The UNHCR signed an agreement with the governments of both countries on Nov. 10, and half a million Somali refugees living in Kenya are expected to return home voluntarily over the next three years. The number of refugees from Somalia – 1.1 million – is the third highest in the world after Afghanistan and Syria.
[…..]
Mbilinyi [UNHCR rep in Kenya—ed] said the UNHCR can monitor the safety of returnees in these areas through partner non-governmental organisations working on the ground. Reception centres will be set up in the three cities, where returnees will receive food, household basics and other materials to help them rebuild their lives.
“Stability is coming back to Somalia. Most of the country is safe even though of course Shabaab are controlling some cities throughout Somalia,” Somalia’s ambassador to Kenya, Mohammed Ali Nur, told a news conference. “We believe that soon we will liberate the whole country.”
If all of the Somalis trying to find the cushy good life in the West went back to Somalia and worked hard they could easily expel al-Shabaab.
I’ll get in real trouble asking this question, but what makes some people willing to fight to improve their lot and others to become parasitic, is it inherited or learned behavior?
We’ve told you about this case before, it has gone on since at least 2010. Four Somali refugee men were found guilty of supporting the terror group al-Shabab (sometimes al-Shabaab) in Somalia, but now they claim their constitutional rights were trampled by the NSA.
Masjid Al-Ansar where one of the guilty men led prayers for years. Photo: Amita Sharma (KPBS)
A San Diego federal judge Thursday rejected a new trial bid by four Somali immigrants convicted of terrorism-related charges earlier this year.
Judge Jeffrey Miller disputed the men’s claims that the controversial National Security Agency surveillance dragnet violated their rights.
The case against the men was initiated after the NSA found a San Diego phone number in 2007 linked to the terrorist group al-Shabab. The number was traced to San Diego cab driver Basaaly Moalin. A jury found Moalin and three other local men guilty in February of sending money to al-Shabab. The men contended that the NSA phone records program trampled on their constitutional rights against illegal searches.
[….]
Three of the four men are scheduled to be sentenced Monday.
So now we get to take care of them in prison. How about deportation?
Scene Of Cannibalism For The Raft Of The Medusa by Theodore Gericault
They were only at sea for three days but, what the heck, rather than starve (hardly possible in three days is it?), one of the aliens took a chunk from a dead man. That is perhaps the most dramatic moment of this fascinating tale from a Somali migrant desperate to cross the Mediterranean and find a new life in the land of milk and honey—Italy!
The story is here at Vice.com and below are some excerpts. You decide if the storyteller is for real (but maybe first revisit, Greenfield on the Hyena Cure!) (Emphasis is mine)
On Tahrib!
Hassan Ali is a 23-year-old Somali who survived gun battles and poverty in his youth in his native country before deciding in 2009 to embark on Tahrib, the perilous journey from Africa to the Italian island of Lampedusa.Thousands of Somalis make this trip every year, and this month it made headlines after a boat caught fire and capsized on October 3, killing over 300 would-be immigrants. Eight days later, a different vessel capsized in an accident that claimed at least 34 lives. Here, Hassan speaks about his troubled life before the trip and the horrors he experienced en route to Europe.
The cannibalism didn’t start until our second boat journey, from Libya to Lampedusa. We had already been traveling for ten days; people were dying and there was no food. I actually saw one guy cutting a piece of flesh from another man’s body.
Our Ali wanted to be an astronaut, but that wasn’t (understandably) possible in his home town in Somalia where squabbling clans were bringing AK-47s to mosques and shooting at ten-year-olds racing home. So, our young and desperate adventurer, upon reaching the age of 19, found enough friends and relatives to front him $800 to go on Tahrib (described as attempting to get to Europe, but one definition I saw was that it translated to ‘smuggling’—being smuggled or doing the smuggling wasn’t clear).
Mom thought he was crazy! That is what all Moms say!
I first heard about Tahrib on the radio when I was 19. There were people in Europe talking about their new lives and how they’d traveled there from Somalia by boat. It sounded like a good idea. After a while I told my parents I planned to leave. They were shocked. “Are you mad?” my mother said. “You’re a young boy, what has gotten into you?” I told them how I thought Tahrib was my only way forward, that I could only find a better life in Europe. They thought I was joking. When I called them from the first boat months later, they were terrified.
First boat was bad, but no cannibalism yet!
Our first trip was from Beled Hawo to Bosaso, a port city on the northern shore of Somalia. It wasn’t the worst journey, but we had hardly any food and the people who drove us there were being very cruel, shouting at us and hitting people occasionally. I was only a kid [editors note: Somalis are “kids” for a long time, I noticed that when they were leaving Minneapolis to join al-Shabaab, kids, just kids!] —I missed my hometown already and everyone seemed so sad even though they were heading off for this exciting new life.
Captured by Libyan armed men who extracted $300 from Mom and Dad for Ali’s release and then on to the merry Tahrib again!
All I wanted was to be back in Beled Hawo with my parents. I didn’t care if I ever made it to Europe. Even if, miraculously, we survived the journey, how would the Europeans treat us? Would I get a visa? Would I be thrown in jail? I was terrified.
The trip across the Mediterranean was the worst part—people were dropping dead and others needed a little protein with their bread and biscuits.
It took another ten days to find a boat from Libya to Lampedusa. Then the real horror began. There was only bread and biscuits on board and the heat was unbearable. People were dropping dead and the captain did nothing. People started eating each other: it was like something from a scary movie right in front of my eyes. That leg of the journey took three days. It felt like years.
Ali, the would-be astronaut, knows who to blame for all of this horror—politicians who don’t help Somalia! Of course that is the moral of the story after all! Ali continues:
Everyone knows that politicians in Europe and Africa are doing nowhere near enough to address the dangers of Tahrib. Otherwise all those people would not have died near Lampedusa this month. No one is addressing the real issues—the violence, the poverty—that led me away from Somalia.[Here is an idea—-how about if Somalis get their own house in order!—ed]
Postscript! Italy let me rebuild my life—-back in Somalia! WTH!
People tell me Lampedusa is beautiful. I have no idea. I can barely remember any of the landscape I saw: everything was so terrifying. But, Alhamdulillah [praise to God], I made it there alive and, amazingly, got an Italian visa after three months of being held at a camp. Some people I traveled with waited years and others never got one. I love Italy, though. I lived there for three years and made a small living working in various jobs. I may never be an astronaut but Italy let me rebuild a life that was destroyed. I’m back in Somalia now—not in Beled Hawo but another city. I hope I get to visit Italy again some day.
