PHOENIX (SoOHA) –  A community of Somali refugees spent the weekend memorializing the importance of women by designing and painting a mural that faces a row of businesses owned by Somali-Americans in Phoenix. Three artists from San Diego, Haadi and Fahad Mohamed, along with Yaqub Hussein, met with local children …

NAIROBI (SoOHA) – Do not force Somali refugees to return back home in volatile areas, the Human Rights Watch warned Kenya on Thursday as the country prepares to shut down world’s biggest refugee camp. “The move threatens the rights and safety of 250,000 people, mostly Somali refugees and asylum seekers, …

The aid agency Oxfam published a report this week warning that up to 1.7 million people in Somaliland are in critical need of humanitarian assistance.  This number has increased by hundreds of thousands in recent months. Radio Ergo correspondent Ilyas Abdi asked OXFAM’s head of communications in Somalia, Abdiaziz Ali …

 Members of the County Assembly (MCAs) in Kenya’s northeastern Mandera County have introduced a bill seeking to compel employers to provide childcare spaces in the workplace for breastfeeding women. The bill is being discussed with members of the public this week. Radio Ergo’s Fowzia Omar asked the sponsor of the …

KISMAYO (SoOHA) – The posting of female teachers to schools and universities in Kismayo in southern Somalia is helping to encourage girls who dropped out of school to return to the classroom, even after leaving to get married. Ten married female students resumed their education recently following counselling and mentoring …

GALKAYO (SoOHA) – Three months ago, Mukhtar Qassim Ali moved his family out of a squalid IDP camp on the outskirts of Galkayo to a decent rented house that he can afford now that he is working as an electrician. Mukhtar, 27, was among 25 young people trained over a …

NAIROBI (SoOHA) – Kenya plans to shutter the world’s largest refugee camp, home to nearly a quarter of a million people, in the next few months, according to an internal UN document seen by AFP on Tuesday. The three-decade-old Dadaab camp in eastern Kenya, which shelters mostly Somalis, would be closed …

MOGADISHU (SoOHA) – Somalia kicked off a countrywide polio campaign yesterday, as part of ongoing efforts to sustain polio immunity and protection in response to the outbreaks of two strains of poliovirus currently circulating. The campaign, which runs from 24-27 March 2019, aims to reach as many as possible of …

KAMPALA (SoOHA) – Regional experts on Monday started a three-day meeting to devise means of improving the livelihood and self-reliance of refugees and host communities in eastern Africa. A joint statement by the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD), a regional body, and the Ugandan government said the meeting is attended …

NEW YORK (SoOHA) – Children under the age of 15 living in countries affected by protracted conflict are, on average, almost three times more likely to die from diarrhoeal diseases caused by a lack of safe water, sanitation and hygiene than by direct violence, UNICEF said in a new report today. …