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.
A fire caused by a burst gas pipe yesterday spread to several homes and sent a fireball soaring into the sky outside Malaysia’s largest city, injuring more than 100 people. The towering inferno near a gas station in Putra Heights outside Kuala Lumpur was visible for kilometers and lasted for several hours. It happened during a public holiday as Muslims, who are the majority in Malaysia, celebrate the second day of Eid al-Fitr. National oil company Petronas said the fire started at one of its gas pipelines at 8:10am and the affected pipeline was later isolated. Disaster management officials said shutting the
DITCH TACTICS: Kenyan officers were on their way to rescue Haitian police stuck in a ditch suspected to have been deliberately dug by Haitian gang members A Kenyan policeman deployed in Haiti has gone missing after violent gangs attacked a group of officers on a rescue mission, a UN-backed multinational security mission said in a statement yesterday. The Kenyan officers on Tuesday were on their way to rescue Haitian police stuck in a ditch “suspected to have been deliberately dug by gangs,” the statement said, adding that “specialized teams have been deployed” to search for the missing officer. Local media outlets in Haiti reported that the officer had been killed and videos of a lifeless man clothed in Kenyan uniform were shared on social media. Gang violence has left
US Vice President J.D. Vance on Friday accused Denmark of not having done enough to protect Greenland, when he visited the strategically placed and resource-rich Danish territory coveted by US President Donald Trump. Vance made his comment during a trip to the Pituffik Space Base in northwestern Greenland, a visit viewed by Copenhagen and Nuuk as a provocation. “Our message to Denmark is very simple: You have not done a good job by the people of Greenland,” Vance told a news conference. “You have under-invested in the people of Greenland, and you have under-invested in the security architecture of this
Japan unveiled a plan on Thursday to evacuate around 120,000 residents and tourists from its southern islets near Taiwan within six days in the event of an “emergency”. The plan was put together as “the security situation surrounding our nation grows severe” and with an “emergency” in mind, the government’s crisis management office said. Exactly what that emergency might be was left unspecified in the plan but it envisages the evacuation of around 120,000 people in five Japanese islets close to Taiwan. China claims Taiwan as part of its territory and has stepped up military pressure in recent years, including
RSS