East Africa

Disqualified candidate arrested after fatal election clashes shake Somalia’s northeast LAS ANOD, Somalia — Security forces in Somalia’s northeast have arrested a wealthy businessman who was disqualified from a regional presidential race, accusing him of mobilizing armed supporters who battled police during an August 29 vote at a hotel in Las Anod. The violence left several people dead, according to local elders, and delayed burials as families spar over where and how to lay their loved ones to rest. What happened Police…

Somalia inches up the Global Peace Index — but the peace dividend remains out of reach In Mogadishu, markets open before sunrise, as vendors arrange tomatoes beneath corrugated roofs and scan their phones for security alerts with the same routine as checking prices. That small, practiced caution has defined Somali life for a generation. This week, a global metric offered a sliver of encouragement: Somalia has improved slightly on the 2025 Global Peace Index, edging to 151st out of 163 with a score of 2.983 — its first dip…

Analysis: In Mogadishu’s Operating Rooms, a Simple Checklist Meets a Tough Reality In a city where surgeons work under the hum of generators and the steady pressure of backlogged cases, a new study from Mogadishu has surfaced a paradox at the heart of patient safety: most clinicians know the World Health Organization’s surgical safety checklist, but relatively few use it. In Somalia’s fragile health system, that gap between knowledge and practice can be the difference between a safe outcome and a preventable tragedy. What…

Somalia’s New Tax Law Is About More Than Money In a packed hall in Mogadishu this week, government officials and business leaders did something that once sounded abstract in a country battered by conflict and aid dependence: they debated tax brackets, compliance, and what a fair state should ask of its citizens. Somalia introduced a new tax law at its annual tax forum, pitched by officials as the backbone of a modern state and a path away from foreign aid. The timing is not an accident—and the stakes are high. Why this…

Kenya’s Coast Confronts Grisly Exhumations in Suspected Cult Killings, Stirring Painful Memories of Shakahola Kenyan authorities have uncovered dozens of bodies and human remains from shallow graves in Kilifi County in what investigators fear is a return of cult-linked killings that shocked this region last year. Police say 11 suspects are in custody and four are being treated as key targets of a widening probe into deaths at a site known locally as Kwa Binzaro, inland from Kenya’s turquoise coastline. Police Chief Douglas…

A Somali Voice Honored in London In a city that has become a second home to so many communities, a voice born along the Indian Ocean was celebrated this week in Bloomsbury. SOAS University of London has conferred an honorary doctorate on Somali novelist Nuruddin Farah, saluting a body of work that, for nearly half a century, has mapped the slippery terrain of exile, identity, and power. For a nation often described as “a country of poets,” the recognition lands like a steadying hand on the shoulder: an affirmation that words…

Somali president hosts senior U.S. commander in Mogadishu as both sides tighten counterterrorism cooperation Somalia and the United States moved to deepen their security partnership on Wednesday as President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud met in Mogadishu with Gen. Dagvin R.M. Anderson and U.S. Ambassador Richard H. Riley for talks centered on counterterrorism and stabilization. Somali officials described Anderson as the new chief of U.S. Africa Command and said the discussions focused on accelerating joint efforts against…

New Envoys in Mogadishu Signal a Deeper European Bet on Somalia’s Future On a sunlit morning at Villa Somalia, the ritual of diplomacy unfolded with a quiet confidence. Somali President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud received the credentials of the European Union’s new ambassador, Francesca Di Mauro, and the Netherlands’ envoy, Henk Jan Bakker. It’s the sort of ceremony that can seem routine—flags aligned, hands clasped, a few words about friendship and cooperation. But in Mogadishu, where diplomacy has often moved in fits and…

Kenyan Border Towns on Edge as Somali Fighters Cross into Mandera After Jubaland Clashes What we know NAIROBI—A tense calm has settled over Kenya’s northeastern frontier after armed Somali regional fighters reportedly crossed into Mandera County, fleeing clashes with Somalia’s federal forces in the neighboring state of Jubaland. Residents say schools are shut, shops are shuttered, and families are on the move, unsure if the gunfire drifting across the scrubland will stay on one side of the border—or spill deeper into Kenya.…

Somali Woman Found Dead in Nairobi Guest House; Police Launch Manhunt for Companion Nairobi’s South B neighborhood woke to a grim discovery on Monday: the body of a 35-year-old Somali woman, identified by police as Farhiyo Ahmed, lying in a small guest room just off the busy Fuata Nyayo corridor. What began late the night before as a budget check-in for two has turned into a homicide investigation and a hunt for a man police say fled the scene. What We Know So Far According to a police report filed at Mariguini Police…