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President of the South West State of Somalia Abdiaziz Hassan Mohamed Laftagareen of Somali citizens in Lasanod by Somaliland authorities.

“It is inhumane to displace citizens in a part of their homeland where they are living peacefully and lawfully. The South West State demands answers from Somaliland government. Children and their parents were separated in Lasanod during the arbitrary displacement” said President Abdiaziz.

President Abdiaziz lauded Puntland State government and people for welcoming and accommodating Somalia citizens whom Somaliland government displaced from Lasanod.

“Some displaced citizens have properties and businesses in Lasanod. I call for the Somali Federal Government, business leaders and the International Community to follow in the footsteps of Puntland State and extend assistance to Somali citizens displaced from Lasanod” added President Abdiaziz.

The South West President has appointed a five-member committee made up of ministers who will visit Puntland State to assess the situation of the displaced people and prepare a voluntary resettlement programme for them in South West state.

Facebook WhatsApp and Instagram are apparently facing outages and many users are unable to use the platforms

DownDetector reports a quick spike in the number of cases of WhatsApp not working for people across regions on October 4. Users are unable to send or receive new messages. Similar behaviour is observable on Instagram, where users are unable to log in, refresh their feed or send direct messages (DMs). The issue has seemingly affected people late in the evening, with outage starting at roughly 9:15 pm IST.

The servers continue to remain down at the time of writing this article and Facebook, WhatsApp and Instagram are currently inaccessible. Users are requested to use alternate methods of messaging like Signal and Telegram until the apps start working again.

This is not the first time apps like WhatsApp have crashed. A similar outage was observed back in March 2021.

Facebook and its Instagram and WhatsApp services have all gone down on Monday in what marks an apparent worldwide outage for many users.

All three of the services saw a spike in late mid-morning outages across their apps and websites, according to the DownDetector website, which tracks internet service outages. Nearly 112,000 outages have been reported on Facebook, over 92,000 outages on Instagram, and nearly 30,000 outages on WhatsApp, DownDetector said.

“We’re aware that some people are having trouble accessing our apps and products,” Facebook spokesman Andy Stone said on Twitter. “We’re working to get things back to normal as quickly as possible, and we apologize for any inconvenience.”

WhatsApp said on Twitter it is “aware that some people are experiencing issues with” the application “at the moment”.

“We’re working to get things back to normal and will send an update here as soon as possible. Thanks for your patience!” said the company.

Instagram and Facebook were the number one trending topic in the US on Twitter.

The outage’s cause remains unclear.

The government of China has pledged to donate more vaccines to Somalia amid the country’s health ministry expressed concern over possible third wave of COVID-19.

Somalia had confirmed its COVID-19 case in 2020, forcing the horn of African nation geared up its efforts curb the spread of the virus.

The country recorded 19,980 cases of COVID-19 since outbreak of the disease in Somalia.

Over 1,111 people have died of the virus while 9,523 other recovered from the disease, according to the health ministry.

During a online meeting with Somalia’s health minister, Fowzia Abikar this week, the Chinese Ambassador to Somalia Fei Shengchao said that China is preparing to donate another batch of vaccines to Somalia to better protect the local people.

“China has continued to give tangible assistance to Somalia in humanitarian aid, education, medicine and other areas, in support of Somalia’s peace and reconstruction,” Fei said.

The announcement of the envoy barely five month since the first batch of COVID-19 vaccines from China arrived in Somalia.

Somalia received 200,000 doses of Sinopharm vaccine donated by China to boost the war against COVID-19 pandemic in the Horn of African State in April.

‘We are seeking information from Israeli government,’ says CEO Gary Pruitt

The American news agency Associated Press on Saturday voiced “shock and horror” over an Israeli attack targeting a building which houses its office in Gaza City.

“We are shocked and horrified that the Israeli military would target and destroy the building housing AP’s bureau and other news organizations in Gaza,” Associated Press CEO and President Gary Pruitt said in a statement.

“We are seeking information from the Israeli government and are engaged with the U.S. State Department to try to learn more,” he added.

Despite Israel’s knowing the location of Associated Press office there, Pruitt said that they received a warning that the building would be hit.

“This is an incredibly disturbing development. We narrowly avoided a terrible loss of life. A dozen AP journalists and freelancers were inside the building and thankfully we were able to evacuate them in time,” he stated.

“The world will know less about what is happening in Gaza because of what happened today,” he concluded.

On Saturday, Israeli warplanes destroyed a building in Gaza City with offices of various media groups, including Al Jazeera and the Associated Press.

An Anadolu Agency correspondent reported that several Israeli missiles hit the Al-Jala Tower.

The 13-story building, one of Gaza’s oldest multi-story buildings, had a total of 60 units, including offices of media companies, legal firms, and doctors.

Offices of Mayadeen Company for media services, radio station of Voice of Prisoners, and Doha Media Center were among the media offices destroyed by the Israeli shelling.

Israel has destroyed at least four multi-story buildings since it launched air strikes on the Gaza Strip on May 10.

At least 139 people, including 39 children and 22 women, have been killed and 950 more injured in the Israeli attacks on Gaza.

The National Union of Somali Journalists (NUSOJ) condemns in the strongest terms, the unexplained attack today on Mustaqbal Media by Somali security forces, during which they ransacked the media house, taking away production equipment.

At around 5:50am on April 27, Somali security forces raided and forcefully entered the headquarters of Mustaqbal Media, an independently owned media house, located in Hodan district, in the KM4 neighbourhood. The security forces then ransacked the offices and confiscated Radio and TV production equipment, including computers used by management staff, Ahmed Isse Gutale, Director of Mustaqbal Media told NUSOJ.

Bashir Mohamud Yusuf, night shift-editor who was at the station during the raid was beaten up by the soldiers.

Neither the government nor the security forces has come out to explain the reasons behind the raid. However, Mustaqbal Media has in recent weeks aired a number of critical reports about government operations and the electoral dispute between the federal government and some federal member states.

“We urge the government to return the equipment they confiscated from our offices and do desist from treating us in a manner that makes us feel targeted by the very government that has a duty to protect us,” he added.

“We strongly condemn this unwarranted attack on Mustaqbal Media. It represents a return to the naked aggression against the media that had made Somalia a notorious place for journalists and independent media to operate” said NUSOJ Secretary General Omar Faruk Osman.

“Today’s attack is all the more shocking because it is the first time in 5 years since President Mohamed Abdullahi Farmaajo came to office that we are witnessing such an incident in Mogadishu. The Mogadishu media community had taken a break from such ugly and violent raids by security forces targeting news media organisations” he added.

In this period of political turmoil and security operations, NUSOJ urges the government forces and the forces loyal to opposition politicians to respect media neutrality, refrain from interfering with the work of media and desist from acts that put journalists’ safety in peril.

NUSOJ also reminds journalists to exercise extreme caution in this situation, and put their safety first. They should also avoid situations that could compromise their professionalism, independence and impartiality.

A host of Somalia’s partners have released a statement strongly condemning the violence in Mogadishu over the weekend.

“International partners strongly condemn the outbreak of violence in Mogadishu on April 25.”

Somalia’s international partners said they have repeatedly warned that a term extension would deepen the political crisis and undermine peace and security. It called on all sides to avoid unilateral actions and exercise maximum restraint. It also called for a resumption of dialogue between the belligerents.

The joint statement said that they were particularly alarmed about the cracks emerging in Somalia’s security apparatus.

“We are alarmed especially by the emerging fragmentation of the Somali National Army (SNA) along clan lines, which detracts from its primary task of combating Al Shabab and protecting the Somali population. Use of security forces for pursuit of political objectives is unacceptable.”

Once again, Somalia’s international partners have stressed that they will only support the September 17 agreement.

“We reiterate that the September 17 agreement remains the only agreed model for elections, and we urge the signatories of this agreement to return immediately to talks on that basis.”

The statement welcomed a recent decision from the African Union Peace and Security Council to appoint a Special Envoy. It said they stand ready to support the envoy and efforts at bringing Somalia’s leaders together.

The UN Secretary-General said that he too was concerned about the armed clashes in Somalia’s capital and also called for dialogue and restraint. António Guterres urged all stakeholders to resume negotiations immediately with the September 17 Electoral Model and Baidoa proposals as the bedrock of all talks.

MOGADISHU (HOL) – Somalia could be headed for a second lockdown following a spike of COVID19 cases in the country as the second wave hits the Horn of Africa nation.

“The first outbreak was managed largely thanks to a lockdown and closure of all school and universities. We have again submitted and advised for these same restrictions and measures,” Dr Abikar said.

Noting the situation in the country was ‘dire’ the Health Minister urged Somalis to adhere to health protocols to tame the spread of the disease.

She asked parents not to send back their children to school. Somalia banned international and local flights in March last year when the first cases of COVID19 were detected in the country.

It also closed learning institutions and put in place stringent measures. However most of those measures have since been relaxed and mask wearing or social distancing is hardly observed in public places.

The country recorded 266 new cases Friday out of a sample of 1807. Somalia is part of the COVAX programme and is expected to receive the COVID19 vaccines soon.

The Federal Government said last month it had secured the vaccines targeting the first two million people among them front line workers, the elderly and the vulnerable.