DADAAB (SoOHA) – A team of young women and men living in Dadaab town in northeastern Kenya have set up a brick-making business that has started to take off. Having struggled to earn a living, and coming from pastoralist backgrounds, they are now supporting their families and dreaming of expanding …
Read More »UN, Somali Funds release $45.7m for life-saving assistance
MOGADISHU (SoOHA) – The United Nations Central Emergency Response Fund (CERF) and the Somalia Humanitarian Fund (SHF) released a combined US$45.7 million today to scale up life-saving assistance in Somalia, where over 4.2 million people need urgent humanitarian assistance this year, including 900,000 acutely malnourished children. “These allocations will enable …
Read More »Somali refugees paint mural celebrating women in Phoenix
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 …
Read More »Rights group warns Kenya over plan to shut refugee camp
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, …
Read More »Female teachers help Somali girls to return to school after marriage
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 …
Read More »From IDPs to electricians … youth in Galkayo now earn a living
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 …
Read More »Kenya plans to close world’s biggest refugee camp Dadaab
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 …
Read More »Somalia kicks off four-day, countrywide polio immunization campaign
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 …
Read More »Regional experts meet in Uganda over refugee self-reliance
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 …
Read More »Children living in conflicts are 3x more likely to die from water-related diseases than from violence
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. …
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Somali Observatory for Humanitarian Affairs The Voice of Reality.. The Eye of Humanitarian Truth in Somalia