Refugee Week – Poem dedicated to refugees:
Ready, Aim, Fire
The gun releases death on to the innocent
Withdraw, turn, March
The murderers kick aside the still corpse
In the sea of blood lay all I loved.
The pain of loss refused to be evicted
The image of death forever stamped in my mind
Eritrea was hit by United Nations sanctions on Wednesday as the international community stepped up its efforts to stop the country’s alleged support for Islamists fighting a bloody insurgency in Somalia.
The US and other western countries accuse Eritrea of supplying weapons and money to the al-Shabaab militia that is seeking to topple Somalia’s weak interim government, which has international support but little authority on the ground.
Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni has said Somali Islamists will “pay” if they attack Uganda’s capital, Kampala.
He spoke after a commander of the Somali Islamist group al-Shabab said it would target Uganda and Burundi, which have peacekeepers in Somalia.
AFTER almost two decades as a failed state torn by civil war, perhaps the world should begin to admit that Somalia – as currently constructed – is beyond repair.
Some of the country, however, can meet at least a basic standard of governance. The northernmost region, Somaliland, situated at the opening to the Red Sea and home to roughly 3.5 million of Somalia’s ten million people, is more or less autonomous and stable.
Bristol Somali Media Group 