East Africa

‘If I can’t work, why am I here?’ A Somali man’s plea in an anxious English town On a gray afternoon in Nuneaton’s market square, shoppers ferried plastic bags past a man who says he wants to go home — not to his hostel, and not to the Britain he’s lived in for two decades, but to Somalia. It’s a jarring sentiment in a town on edge about migration, but for 50-year-old Yusuf Ali Hamud, the calculation is simple: “I don’t feel safe here,” he told Sky News in an interview. “Back home, now, I’m safe. I want to go back.” Hamud…

Somalia says senior al‑Shabaab commander killed in planned raid in Hiiraan Somalia’s intelligence service says it has killed a senior al‑Shabaab commander in a targeted operation in central Somalia, the latest strike in a grinding campaign to weaken the al‑Qaeda‑linked insurgency as it battles for influence along the Shabelle River valley. In a statement Wednesday, the National Intelligence and Security Agency (NISA) said its forces, backed by international partners, conducted a planned raid in the Shaw area of Hiiraan…

Egypt’s Somalia Gamble: Peacekeeping, Power Plays, and a Dam That Won’t Go Away On paper, Egypt’s plan to send troops to Somalia is a textbook peacekeeping deployment under an African Union mandate. In practice, it lands squarely on the fault lines of one of Africa’s thorniest rivalries: Cairo versus Addis Ababa, with the Horn of Africa as the stage and the Nile as the subtext. Egypt says its soldiers are going to Somalia to help fight al-Shabaab and stabilize a country clawing its way out of decades of war. Ethiopia hears…

Burkina Faso's Controversial Step Backward: The New Anti-Homosexuality Law In a rapid and unsettling turn of events, Burkina Faso's transitional parliament has unanimously passed a bill that criminalizes homosexual acts, placing the West African nation in a club of over 30 African countries where same-sex relations are outlawed. The new law imposes harsh penalties, including prison sentences ranging from two to five years, fines, and even the threat of deportation for foreign nationals caught violating its provisions. This…

Somalia and Serbia Reach for Old Ties to Shape New Deals In the polished halls of Belgrade’s presidential complex, Somali Prime Minister Hamza Abdi Barre stood beneath a bank of flags and spoke a sentence you now hear in capitals across the Global South: “Somalia offers vast opportunities for investment.” On Tuesday, Barre and Serbian Prime Minister Đuro Macut signed a health cooperation agreement and pledged to deepen ties in trade, investment, education and security—an agenda that reads less like a single visit than a…

Prominent elder slain in Somalia’s Gedo region as tensions simmer along border Attack in Beled Hawo A prominent community elder and local council member was shot dead late Monday in Beled Hawo, a hard-to-govern border town in Somalia’s Gedo region where political strain and armed groups have frayed the edges of daily life. Residents identified the victim as Aden Mohamud Buurdhubo, a respected figure known for mediating disputes and pushing for calm in a place that often runs on uneasy truces. Gunmen opened fire under cover…

Somali police publicly burn 250 cartons of seized drugs in Mogadishu, widening a high-stakes crackdown Somali authorities burned 250 cartons of seized drugs in Mogadishu on Tuesday, a public destruction meant to send an unmistakable message: the country’s ports, airports and border crossings are being watched, and trafficking will be met with the full force of the law. The haul was confiscated at Mogadishu Port and Aden Adde International Airport after weeks of heightened surveillance, police said. The Banadir Regional…

Analysis: A New Chapter in Las Anod Tests Somalia’s Fragile Federalism In the dust-brown city of Las Anod, the center of a long-contested patch of northern Somalia, a political ceremony is poised to send a message that carries well beyond the city’s edge. Somalia’s President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud and Prime Minister Hamza Abdi Barre are expected to attend the swearing-in of Abdikadir Ahmed Aw-Cali—widely known as Firdhiye—as president of the newly formed Northeastern Somali administration. The move signals not only the…

Kenya and Uganda Move to Tear Down Trade Barriers. Can the Northern Corridor Finally Breathe? At dawn on the Malaba border, the hiss of air brakes is as constant as birdsong. Truck drivers brew tea on camp stoves beside long queues of lorries, waiting for stamps, scans, and weighbridge ticks that can eat full days of their lives. On Saturday in Mbale, Uganda, ministers from Kenya and Uganda said they want to change that—fast. In a joint communique, Kenya’s Investments, Trade and Industry Cabinet Secretary Lee Kinyanjui and…

Analysis: Jubbaland’s Broadside Against Mogadishu Exposes Somalia’s Uneasy Balancing Act Somalia’s fragile political compact wobbled again this week as the Jubbaland regional administration publicly accused the federal government in Mogadishu of drifting from core national priorities, including the campaign against al-Shabaab and the country’s hard-won political unity. In a blunt statement issued Monday, Jubbaland warned that “short-term political interests” were eroding trust and urged a return to consensus politics. “The…