Day: December 30, 2021

Fighters from Somalia’s al-Shabab militant group attacked a town north of the capital, Mogadishu, on Thursday, killing at least seven people as they battled government security forces, a resident and police said.

The attack happened amid a political dispute between Somalia’s president and prime minister which its international partners worry has distracted the government from the fight against the insurgents.

Police and residents in Balad, 30 km (18 miles) north of Mogadishu, said fighters from the al-Qaida-linked group attacked and overran government forces guarding a bridge at a town entrance early in the morning.

“We were in a mosque praying when a heavy exchange of gunfire took place at the bridge. Al-Shabab thus captured the town, overrunning the soldiers at the bridge,” Hassan Nur, a shopkeeper in Balad, an agricultural town that links Somalia’s Middle Shabelle region to Lower Shabelle, told Reuters by telephone.

“There were few police forces in the town. (The police) were missing. When the firing started people ran into their houses. I counted five dead soldiers and two civilian women,” he said.

Police captain Farah Ali said the fighters stayed briefly in the town after the attack but then left.

“Al-Shabab did not come to our station but captured the entire town in the fighting and left without patrolling,” he told Reuters.

“I understand there are about eight people dead including soldiers.”

Al-Shabab aims to topple the government and impose a strict version of Islamic law. It often carries out bomb attacks on government targets but also on civilians. It also targets African Union peacekeeping troops.

Somalia, which has had only limited central government since 1991, is trying to reconstruct itself with the help of the United Nations.

The United Nations and various countries have urged its prime minister, Mohammed Hussein Roble, and President Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed to settle their dispute, which has raised fears of conflict.

The president on Monday tried to suspend the prime minister’s powers for suspected corruption. The prime minister described the move as a coup attempt and he asked all security forces to take orders from his office, not the president.

Source: Voice of America

South Africa has lifted a midnight-to-4 a.m. curfew on people’s movement, effective immediately, saying the country has passed the peak of its fourth COVID-19 wave driven by the omicron variant, a government statement said Thursday.

However, wearing a face mask in public places remains mandatory. Failure to wear a mask in South Africa when required is a criminal offense.

The country made the curfew and other changes based on the trajectory of the pandemic, levels of vaccination in the country and available capacity in the health sector, according to a press release issued by Mondli Gungubele, a minister in the presidency.

South Africa is at the lowest of its five-stage COVID-19 alert levels.

“All indicators suggest the country may have passed the peak of the fourth wave at a national level,” a statement from the special cabinet meeting held earlier Thursday said.

Data from the Department of Health showed a 29.7% decrease in the number of new cases detected in the week ending December 25 compared with the number of cases found in the previous week, at 127,753, the government said.

South Africa, with close to 3.5 million infections and 91,000 deaths, has been the worst-hit country in Africa during the pandemic on both counts.

Besides lifting the restrictions on public movement, the government also ruled that alcohol shops with licenses to operate after 11 p.m. local time may revert to full license conditions, a welcome boon for traders and businesses hard hit by the pandemic and looking to recover during the festive season.

“While the omicron variant is highly transmissible, there have been lower rates of hospitalization than in previous waves,” the statement said.

Source: Voice of America