Somalia's top exiled Islamist leader on Wednesday pledged his camp's commitment to a new peace drive but warned the movement would keep up its struggle against what it calls Ethiopian occupation. "Members of the international community are trying to help Somalis overcome their differences and we will do all we can," Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed said.
The United Nations Children's Fund (Unicef) representative for Somalia on Friday voiced his concern at the increasing number of rape cases in the country's war-torn capital, Mogadishu. "Sexual violence and rape are part of the game now," Christian Balslev-Olesen said at a press briefing on the deteriorating access to health in Mogadishu.
Somali authorities on Tuesday released the local head of the World Food Programme, who was seized nearly a week ago when government forces stormed a United Nations compound in Mogadishu. "He is safely back in the office. He was brought by some government officers as well as local UN staffers," a UN official said in Mogadishu.
