Sports

Ramla Ali Comes Home: Somalia Honors a Fighter Who Changed the Script On a humid afternoon in Mogadishu, where the Indian Ocean throws salt into the breeze and the city’s traffic hums like a restless drum, a boxer walked into City Hall and rewrote an old story. Ramla Ali, Somalia’s first Olympic boxer and one of its most recognized athletes, accepted the Medal of Honor from the Governor of Banadir Region and Mayor of Mogadishu, Hassan Mohamed Hussein Muungaab—an emblem of a nation eager to celebrate achievement amid the…

Ramla Ali’s Homecoming: A Boxer’s Quiet Power in a Country Finding Its Feet At Aden Adde International Airport, where the palm fronds sway and the wind blows in from the Indian Ocean, a ripple of applause rolled down the arrivals hall. Flag-waving fans pressed forward, mothers hoisted toddlers onto their hips, and the noise swelled into a chant for a fighter who once trained in secret. Ramla Ali—Somalia’s first Olympic boxer and a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador—was back in Mogadishu. On Sunday, the 35-year-old featherweight…

Somalia Says Voter Registration in Jubbaland to Start Soon, Pushing Toward One-Person, One-Vote Somalia’s prime minister says voter registration in Jubbaland will begin “soon,” a fresh signal that the federal government is pressing ahead with a long-promised shift to one-person, one-vote elections across the country. The announcement, delivered Wednesday, is meant to reassure Somalis that preparations are on track for landmark local government polls slated for October 2025. But the path ahead remains bumpy, with political…

Nuruddin Farah’s Honorary Degree Is Also a Map of Where African Letters Are Headed On a damp London morning, SOAS, University of London, conferred an honorary doctorate on the Somali novelist Nuruddin Farah — an author whose life’s work has been to rescue a country by rebuilding it on the page. The honor feels tidy and ceremonial; Farah’s novels are anything but. Over nearly five decades, from the dictatorship of Siad Barre to the age of global exile, he has written Somalia into visibility with an unblinking steadiness. You…

Arrest of Puntland State Football Figure Deepens Rift in Somali Soccer Puntland State’s already fraught football politics spilled into public view on Saturday when security forces detained Mohamed Ali Isse, widely known as Ciiro, at Garowe’s airport as he prepared to board a flight out of the city. Authorities have not announced charges or publicly explained the arrest. Local outlets and football insiders say it may be tied to a leadership struggle inside the Puntland State Football Association, or to alleged political links…

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…

In central Minnesota, a Somali-American doctor builds a clinic that speaks the community’s language On a winter Saturday in St. Cloud, the parking lot outside a modest strip mall is doing brisk business. Children in puffy coats hop between parents’ hands. A woman steps out of a halal butcher shop with a paper sack of lamb bones for soup. A door just down the row swings open, and a man in a pale-blue medical coat ushers in a family. Inside Hayat Clinic, the hum is steady and familiar: a child’s cough, a greeting in Somali, a…

Somalia says senior al-Shabaab figures killed in Hiiraan raid Mogadishu — Somalia’s intelligence service says it has killed several senior al-Shabaab figures in a planned operation in the country’s center, striking what officials described as a militant stronghold in the Hiiraan region. The operation, carried out by the National Intelligence and Security Agency (NISA) with support from international partners, took place in the Shaw area, long considered a rear base and staging ground for the al-Qaeda-linked group. What…

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…