Mogadishu

Gunmen have hijacked yet another ship in the pirate-infested waters off the coast of lawless Somalia in the latest of a spate of such incidents that have prompted dire maritime warnings, officials said on Thursday. Pirates seized the Maltese-registered MV Pagania on Wednesday as it sailed northward from South Africa to Europe with cargo of iron ore.

Thousands of angry Somalis took to the streets of bullet-scarred Mogadishu on Wednesday to protest the arrest this week in Sweden of the capital’s police chief on suspicion of genocide. ”I don’t know who assigned Sweden to be the judge in the Somali conflict,” said Mohamed Qanyare Afrah, the minister of national security in Somalia’s deeply split transitional government.

Highly organised, well-armed and increasingly brazen pirates have turned the unpatrolled waters off the Somali coast into a maritime disaster zone and attack and seize merchant vessels seemingly at will. Amid faltering efforts to restore a functioning government to the mainland, Somalia’s Indian Ocean and Gulf of Aden sea lanes have been taken over by ransom-seeking warlords, officials say.

An unidentified ship has been hijacked off the coast of Somalia in the latest in a series of piracy incidents in Somali waters that have prompted dire international maritime warnings, a militia said on Thursday. Pirates seized the vessel are holding its crew hostage, the Juba Valley Alliance militia said.

Somali pirates who hijacked a United Nations-chartered food aid ship nearly two months ago have begun unloading its cargo for apparent distribution to residents of their home region of Haradere, witnesses said on Wednesday. The MV Semlow was seized on June 27 en route to Bosasso in Somalia’s north-east Puntland region.

Heavily armed gunmen in Somalia’s lawless capital of Mogadishu overnight shot dead an outspoken Somali aid worker and peace activist who headed an NGO in the shattered African nation, witnesses said on Monday. They said about six gunmen raided the home of Abdulkadir Yahya Ali, hauled him out of his house and shot him dead.

After a long-delayed weekend return from exile to his native country, Somalia’s prime minister on Monday began talks with warlords and other power-brokers on finding a home for his transitional government in the lawless war-shattered nation. A debate is currently raging over where the administration should set up shop.

A Somali broadcast journalist was killed at the weekend when gunmen opened fire at the vehicle in which she was travelling near the Somali capital Mogadishu, officials said on Monday. HornAfrik media said Duniya Muhiyadin Nur had gone to the area to cover a demonstration.

Militias led by two lawmakers in Somalia’s Parliament fought for control of a major south-western trading centre on Monday, killing at least 15 people. The battle began at 3am local time when fighters from a clan faction allied to neighbouring Ethiopia attacked Baidoa with mortars and other heavy weapons.

A suspected outbreak of dengue fever has hit the Somali capital of Mogadishu, medical workers said on Wednesday. Abdi Ibrahim Jiya, a doctor in Mogadishu, said he believes the disease is dengue, but that doctors have been unable to confirm that because the lawless capital lacks the necessary laboratory equipment.

A student picked up one of many unexploded munitions littering Somalia on Sunday, setting off a blast that killed four boys and injured six others, witnesses said. The dead were aged between 10 and 16. The injured lost limbs or suffered abdominal wounds in the explosion at Sabiid, a village in the central Somali region of Mudug.

Six people died and at least 11 were wounded when fighting broke out early on Monday in the Somali capital, Mogadishu, witnesses and medical personnel said. Witnesses said militias of the city’s Islamic courts clashed with residents in the northern part of the capital over the control of the bus traffic in the area.

Members of a heavily armed Somali gang occupying a desecrated colonial-era Italian cemetery in Mogadishu said on Tuesday they will build a mosque at the site. Gunmen exhumed the remains of hundreds of Italian nationals nearly 50 years ago and discarded them into trash-dumping zones along the shores of the Indian Ocean.

Officials in Somalia’s capital on Tuesday urged the country’s interim government to return home from exile in neighboring Kenya, saying residents in bullet-scarred Mogadishu were ready to welcome it. ”Mogadishu is peaceful enough and ready to welcome the new Somali government as well as hand over national institutions,” said governor Abdullahi Firibi.

A Somali warlord said on Friday his gunmen have fired heavy artillery shells towards the closed seaport in Mogadishu to scare away two foreign vessels that have been trying to dock there. The shells were fired late on Thursday and early on Friday when the privately owned MV Star and MV Bilal tried to anchor.

At least 15 people were killed, 25 wounded and hundreds displaced north of the Somali capital on Wednesday, bringing the total number of dead in three days of clashes between rival gunmen to 29, medical sources said. The fighting erupted on Monday after a gunman opened fire on a passing motorist near the capital’s Global hotel.

Cholera outbreaks in southern Somalia have killed 57 people in the past week, health officials said on Tuesday. ”The disease is rapidly spreading among the people in rural areas and farmers, as well as those in Mogadishu refugee camps who have no access to proper medical care,” the doctors said in a joint statement.

At least 11 people were killed and 19 others wounded in interclan fighting in southern Somalia’s Middle Juba region, militia sources and elders said on Monday. The fighting, which erupted late on Sunday and continued on Monday morning reportedly left 11 people dead and 19 wounded.

Children’s voices reciting the Qur’an echo down the narrow alleyways in one of Mogadishu’s residential neighborhoods where three or four generations of Somalis share small, concrete block homes behind high white walls and dark wooden doors.

About 34 people were killed and 80 wounded, some seriously, in two days of clashes this week between rival clans in central Somalia, elders said on Tuesday. The fighting had died down by midday on Tuesday, even though no official ceasefire had been agreed, an elder added.

At least 27 people have been and 45 others wounded after fighting erupted between the militia of two clans in central Somalia. The fighting, which broke out on Monday, pitted members of the Marehan clan against their Dir rivals in Herale village of Abudwaaq district.

Gunmen in the Somali capital have kidnapped Minister of State for Tourism, Ahmed Mohamed Nur ”Alliyow”, and demanded a 000 ransom.

Rival armed groups withdrew their forces from a district in the north of the Somali capital on Thursday, after signing a ceasefire in the wake of two days of deadly clashes.

Whenever Mohamud Ali Abdi’s captors went out, they tied one of his toes to the trigger of an AK-47 assault rifle pointed at his stomach.