MOGADISHU (Xinhua) – Talks aimed at pacifying the Somali capital Mogadishu is under way between leaders of Al-Shabaab Islamist movement, an insurgent group, and elders of the revered Hawiye clan, local media reports said Sunday.
The talks between the two sides comes after the elders this week managed to persuade the Al-Shabaab group to rescind their threat to shoot down planes using the airport in Mogadishu which they said is being used for military purposes.
“We are talking brotherly for the sake of our people and the leaders of the Al-Shabaab will take our advice as they listened tous before,” Ahmed Diriye, spokesman for the Council of Hawiye clanelders, told reporters in Mogadishu.
Diriye, who last week said he received death threats from members of the group, was hopeful that a deal could be reached regarding the security of the capital particularly in the few residential areas remaining in the city.
Spokesman for Al-Shabaab, Sheik Muqtar Robow Abu Masur, distanced his group from the death threats against the Hawiye elder, saying Diriye is “the grandfather of all resistant fighters” and can never be threatened.
Bridgye Ba-Houko, spokesman for AU peacekeeping force in Somalia, told Xinhua that he welcomes the efforts by clan leaders to bring peace to the city.
The Al-Shabaab group, listed by the U.S. as one of the foreign terror organizations, has been accused of operating from populated areas in their attacks against African Union peacekeepers and Ethiopian Woyanne troops backing Somali government forces, who in turn respond with heavier artillery shells that causes many of the civilian causalities.
Nearly a hundred and fifty civilians have been killed and more than three hundred others wounded as a result of heavy shelling between AU forces guarding the airport and the Al-Shabaab which attacked the airport with mortar shells every time a plane landed since Sept. 16.
By Prasanna
ADDIS ABABA, ETHIOPIA – On Saturday, I woke up bright and early at 5:30 AM to leave for my first shift as a volunteer/English/Music teacher at Menagesha – the Cheshire Services Rehabilitation Facility for children with disabilities. I caught a mini-bus to Meskal Square where I boarded the Cheshire Services employee bus which transports all of the Cheshire employees to Menagesha from Addis and then back to Addis at the end of the shift. Menagesha is about 25 km away from Addis and the bus leaves Meskal Square about 6:45 AM. The bus was really nice, unlike any of the mini-buses or local transport I had taken so far. In fact, it was reminiscent of a Greyhound bus back home with plush seats and head rests. As expected, I fell asleep and awoke 1 hour later to find myself at Menagesha.
The first order of the day was to meet with the teacher at Menagesha who taught the children math and languages during the week. I was told that I would teach my class from 9 to 10:15 AM. For the first hour (i.e. from 8:00 AM to 9:00 AM), I worked in the handicraft room with the children. The children taught me how to make woven bags, wallets, purses etc. One of the children also told me that he would show me how to use the sewing machine next week. I told him that I barely passed sewing in Grade 9 and this was after my sewing teacher had practically made my whole final project for me. The craft room was such a treat and reminded me of the many crafts that my mom taught me when I was a child.
At 9 AM, I started to teach my first English class which included about 40 students ranging in age from 4 years old to about 15 years old. The levels of English comprehension also varied from child to child with some children being quite fluent in English and others wanting to learn the basics. I started off with some easy conversational questions including asking the children to tell the group their names, their hometowns etc. The children are all from outside of Addis and while they are staying at Menagesha, they often do not have much (or any contact) with their family. The children were all very happy to talk about their hometowns and tell me about themselves. I told them a bit about life in Canada which generated a number of questions, especially from the older children – about the weather in Canada, whether the people were nice, what it was like compared to Ethiopia etc. They asked how I traveled from Canada to Ethiopia – by boat or plane?
It was fascinating to hear all of their questions and to engage them in conversation. It was often hard to communicate though given the linguistic barriers and the teacher (Hailu) who teaches the class throughout the week served as a translator. This linguistic barrier is further complicated by the fact that all of the children do not speak Amharic, as they are from different regions of Ethiopia with different linguistic traditions.
Afterwards, I taught them a song that I learned when I was taking music/human values classes in Canada. I wrote the lyrics on the blackboard and the children who could read English automatically lifted their voices in order to serve as beacons for the children who could not read. Eventually, after about 5 or 6 go-arounds on the song, the children were good to go and really enjoyed it. They also learned all of the actions that went with the song. I was so impressed.
They then asked me what type of music I liked and I told them that I really enjoyed Teddy Afro and his song Ababaiyo. The children were thrilled and then one child counted the beat and the entire class burst into a rousing rendition of Ababaiyo complete with the rhythmic clapping beat that is so central to the song. I was so touched and they could tell I was totally enjoying it. It was like a musical where suddenly the entire cast bursts into song! No joke.
After class, the kids were so sweet and wanted to visit with me. It was not the gawking or over-inquisitiveness that I often encounter in Addis when some people are fascinated by the “farenji”, but instead it was a genuine concern and outpouring of love. I ended up playing soccer with some of the kids. Yes – you all read that correctly. I played a sport. I was actually running around on a field kicking a soccer ball. Luckily the traumatic memories of my one year in soccer in Grade 4 did not come flooding back. I then had a chance to play table tennis with one of the kids.
Apparently, word spread that there was this farenji teaching music and English lessons to the children. You see, many of the children at Menagesha are confined to their beds, as they have just underwent surgical procedures that require them to remain on strict bed-rest for a long time. These children heard that I had given a class and asked that I come and visit them also. It was so wonderful to meet these kids. As I mentioned earlier, I was super nervous about what it would be like to teach given the huge linguistic barriers (with me knowing virtually no Amharic).
The children in the recovery wing were super awesome. They could sense that I was not sure how to communicate with them. They pointed to different things around the room and taught me how to say them in Amharic. They taught me how to count to one million in Amharic (not each and every number but the main numbers i.e. 1 to 100, 1000, 10000, 100000, and 1000000). They taught me about colours and animals and furniture and the corresponding words in Amharic. They would repeat words with difficult pronunciations to make sure I understood them correctly. At 11:45 AM, it was time for their lunch and it was time for me to leave to catch my bus back to Addis which departed at noon. The children insisted that I stay and have lunch with them and when I told them I would come back next week, each one of them called me to come close and gave me a huge hug. It took everything in me not to burst into tears (which admittedly did happen on my walk back to the bus).
These children, full of love, laughter and light, have touched my heart in a way that I cannot even begin to express, just by accepting me so unconditionally. On Saturday morning, I traveled to Menagesha hoping to help in some small way. The truth is that I did nothing. These children helped me. They taught me Amharic. They got me to play soccer (I know – shocking!). They got me to laugh. They sang me Ababaiyo. They got me to see that life, with its many obstacles and complexities, is so precious. They are absolutely incredible and I am so grateful to them.
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The writer is a lawyer from Saskatchewan, Canada, who is currently in Ethiopia on an international placement. Menagesha is a rehabilitation facility which helps children during their post-surgery rehabilitation. Most of the children face a permanent physical disability and the center specializes in working with these children. The center includes physical rehabilitation services, a department which builds wheelchairs, prosthetic limbs, and assistive footwear devices. The children are also given daily instruction both in subjects such as English and arithmetic but also in life skills and art. The children typically arrive at Menagesha immediately after their surgery and remain there for a period of 4-6 months for post-surgery rehabilitation.
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This year’s enrollment at Bashiro Primary School is the lowest
in three years [Photo: IRIN/Tesfalem](IRIN) – Ethiopia’s schools have opened for the new academic year, but severe food insecurity in some regions has kept thousands of children out of class.
Contrast that with what Woyannes are doing as shown in this video.
“This time last year we had already enrolled 2,300 students,” said Solomon Desta, director of Bashiro primary school in Bona district of Sidama zone in the Southern region. “Now we have registered 1,800.”
Solomon had prepared for 2,500 children because he was forced to send some children to other schools last year as Bashiro could not accommodate them all.
The school extended its registration deadline by 15 days from 1 September but still the numbers did not improve. “The turnout is the lowest of the last three years,” Solomon told IRIN.
The parents of the children who had stayed away explained they could not send them to school because there was little or nothing to eat at home.
Shemna Hurufa village, also in Sidama zone, the only primary school for grades one to four, had planned for at least 800 students this season, but only 710 had registered by 26 September.
“Compared to the vastness of our kebele [ward], we expected many children [to register for school],” the director, Lema Harriso, said. “There are about 400 children of school age in our kebele, but only 260 of them are registered.”
The school, Lema said, registered 860 children in September last year, but 200 had dropped out by the end of the school year in June.
These are just two of the many schools whose enrolments have been affected by food and water shortages in Ethiopia.
Below-average rains
According to the Famine Early Warning Systems Network (FEWS Net), extreme levels of food insecurity have persisted in southern and south-eastern Ethiopia. This is due to successive seasons of below-average rains, flooding in riverine areas, livestock disease, an army worm infestation, conflict, inadequate humanitarian assistance, and extremely high and rising food prices.
Oromiya, Southern, Tigray, Amhara, and Somali regions are the most food-insecure, with 297 woredas considered hot spots, where critical and serious levels of acute malnutrition have been reported.
All of Somali region, but mainly Fik, Warder, Gode, Dagabhur, Korahe, Liben and Afder zones, require urgent assistance given the rapid declines in food security conditions over the past 18 months, FEWS Net stated in a 29 September update.
The situation in these areas has proved dire for parents. “For poor families, the basic costs of school materials are now completely prohibitive,” the NGO Save the Children said on 26 September.
“All money must go on finding food; in many cases children are not eating enough to be able to make the journey to school, and are unable to concentrate once they get there,” it added.
Findings by the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) in June showed a high drop-out rate this year in Oromiya, Tigray, Somali and Southern regions.
“Education has been disrupted in the drought-affected areas, resulting in decreased school attendance, increased drop-out rates, and teachers migrating from their assigned school as currently reported in parts of Oromiya, Southern and Somali regions,” the agency said.
Malnutrition
A large number of children in Shemna Hurufa are also malnourished, with many receiving therapeutic assistance.
Amanuel Eleso, 25, took his brother Henok, 8, to the centre when he realised he was ill. “Our mother died six years ago. There is no one who can take care of Henok.”
The eldest son with a weak, old father, Amanuel had taken Henok to live with his three children. Eventually he took in his 10- and 13-year-old brothers as well.
But the struggle to feed his brothers and his own children was too much. “Due to erratic rainfall, we do not produce enough maize,” Amanuel said. “The next harvest will only cover three to four months.”
Sidama zone depends on both short and main rainy seasons. The short season, belg, lasts from March to April and the main one from June to mid-September.
‘Aid workers say the two seasons have performed poorly this year. In Hwassa Zuria woreda, where Amanuel lives, a nutritional survey in May and June by the NGO Goal and the regional Emergency Nutrition Co-ordination Unit found high severe acute malnutrition rates of 5.5 percent with 1.6 percent oedema, and global acute malnutrition rates of 29.9 percent.
Across the country, the government estimates that 6.4 million Ethiopians will need relief food in the coming months, including 1.9 million in Somali region.
This number is in addition to the 5.7 million Productive Safety Net Programme beneficiaries in drought-affected areas, who receive food and cash, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), said.
High food prices
According to FEWS Net, prices have continued to rise, reducing food access for the urban poor, poor rural farmers, and pastoral and agro-pastoral populations.
“Cereal prices are extremely high compared to the same time last year, as well as the five-year average,” FEWS Net said. “In Addis Ababa, the nominal retail price of white maize was 176 percent and 224 percent higher, respectively.”
Amanuel said he could no longer afford to feed the children well. “When I took Henok for a medical check-up, they told me I should feed him properly,” he said. “Where can I get the food they talk about?”
