SOMALI PIRATES SEIZE CHINESE VESSEL

Somali pirates have hijacked a Chinese cargo ship with 25 crew on board, the EU’s anti-piracy naval mission says.

The De Xin Hai, which was transporting coal, was seized early on Monday in the Indian Ocean, about 1,100km (700 miles) east of the Somali coast.

The hijacking is believed to have been the first time a ship has been seized between the Seychelles and Maldives.

It is also the first successful attack on a Chinese vessel since the country deployed three warships to the region.

John Harbour, a spokesman for the EU Navfor Maritime Patrol, said one of its aircraft had located the vessel after Monday’s attack.

“The aircraft spotted at least four pirates on the deck and the vessel is towing two skiffs. It was last reported heading west towards the Somali coast,” he said.

Later, one of the pirates, Hassan, told Reuters news agency that the hijacked ship would be sailed to either Haradheere or Hobyo.

The ship, which is owned by the Qingdao Ocean Shipping Company, was on its way from South Africa to India when it was captured.

Monday’s hijacking brings to six the total number of vessels currently in the hands of Somali pirates.

Joel Morgan, the Seychelles’ minister of state for piracy, said maritime traffic in the area had dropped by a third recently due to the threat.

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FRENCH HOSTAGE ESCAPES SOMALI REBELS

One of two French security advisers kidnapped by insurgents in Somalia last month escaped on Wednesday after killing three of his captors and fled to the presidential palace in Mogadishu, police said.

Gunmen had seized the Frenchmen at a hotel in the capital on July 14 then handed one to the Hizbul Islam rebels and the other to fighters from the al Shabaab group, which Washington describes as al Qaeda’s proxy in the Horn of Africa state.

Al Shabaab militants said they had later taken custody of both men, although that could not be confirmed. Somali government officials at the city’s hilltop Villa Somalia palace said the man who escaped was in good health.

“We understand he killed three al Shabaab guys who were guarding him. I cannot understand how this good story happened but now he is in the hands of the government,” Abdiqadir Odweyne, a senior police commander, told Reuters.

Somalia’s fragile U.N.-backed government faces a stubborn insurgency that includes foreign jihadists and militants who Western security agencies say are using the country as a safe haven to plot attacks in the region and beyond.

An al Shabaab source confirmed three of its members had been killed, but said it was not known by whom: “Three of my friends died but who killed them is the question. We were expecting a ransom this morning,” the rebel source said.

One associate of the kidnappers said the Frenchman had been freed after talks with Somali elders. A senior Somali government official said a ransom had been paid for his release.

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UN ADMITS FAILURE IN KENYAN REFUGEE CAMP

One of the world’s largest refugee camps fails to meet even the most basic standards, the UN has admitted.

More than a quarter of a million Somalis are crowded into the Dadaab camp in eastern Kenya having fled fighting in their own country.

Chronic overcrowding makes it difficult to help those in need, officials say, and Kenya is resisting expansion calls.

The UN High Commissioner for Refugees, Antonio Guterres, is due to visit on Tuesday to discuss additional space.

The UNHCR, the UN’s refugee agency, believes that with more than 6,000 new refugees arriving every month it has no choice but to expand the camp.

Dadaab is a collection of three sprawling tented cities on Kenya’s sandy frontier with Somalia.

As Somalis lined up for their daily ration of food, one resident, Mohamed Shukra Shukra, told the BBC: “The problem is no water… no hospital, no food, it’s a problem.”

The UN said that when judged by its own standards it was clear the camp was failing.

Senior operations manager Bono Katandi said: “If you talk about health the standard is one health centre to 10,000 population.

“We’re talking of 28,000. When you talk about water we’re only getting less than 12 litres of water per person per day while the standard is 20 litres.”

But the agency insists the problem is not of its making, the BBC’s East Africa correspondent Peter Greste reports from Dadaab camp.

When the camp was built almost two decades ago it was designed for 90,000 refugees, but there are now more than three times that number.

Mr Katandi said more land was needed.

“Unless you get more land you will have difficulties providing enough water,” he said.

“We will still have difficulties providing enough shelter. We’ll still have difficulties providing enough health facilities within the location that they are now.”

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11 INDONESIAN SAILORS FREED 8 MONTHS AFTER CAPTURE BY SOMALI PIRATES

Eleven Indonesian sailors have been released by Somali pirates almost eight months after their ship was hijacked.

The crew of the Malaysian tugboat Masindra 7 were captured in mid-December as they sailed to Male, Maldives, an EU spokesman said.

A ransom was paid for the release, a Kenyan-based NGO, Ecoterra International, told AFP news agency.

Somali piracy attacks in the Gulf of Aden and the wider region have prompted many nations to send warships there.

A few dozen patrols – including from Russia, China, the US and Malaysia – are currently patrolling an area of about two million sq miles (five million sq km) off the Somali coast.

European Union naval spokesman Lt Cmdr Daniel Auwermann said the release of Masindra 7 came on Saturday.

The tugboat belongs to a Malaysian company, Masindra Shipping Pvt Ltd.

Many of the piracy attacks end with the payment of ransom.

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US DANGLES AXE OVER ERITREA

The US has warned Eritrea that it will face sanctions if it does not withdraw its backing for insurgents fighting the fragile UN-backed Somali government.

US envoy to the UN Susan Rice told a Congress committee that Eritrea’s actions would not be tolerated.

In April the African Union, another backer of the Somali government, also called for sanctions over the issue.

But Eritrean officials have repeatedly denied the allegations, calling them a “fabrication” of US intelligence.

The country suspended its membership of the AU in protest at the sanctions call in April.

Ms Rice said the nation was running out of time to avoid strict measures from the Security Council.

“There is a very short window for Eritrea to signal through its actions that it wishes a better relationship with the United States and indeed the wider international community,” she said.

“If we do not see signs of that signal in short order, I can assure you that we will be taking appropriate steps with partners in Africa and the Security Council.”

US Secretary of State Hilary Clinton is due to visit the region next week, when she is expected to meet Somalia’s President Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed in neighbouring Kenya.

The UN has frequently expressed concern about the flow of arms into Somalia, where hard-line Islamists of al-Shabab and Hisbul-Islam are battling with government forces for control of the capital Mogadishu.

Somalia has been subject to a UN arms embargo for many years but weapons are still freely available in the Mogadishu weapons market.

President Ahmed, a moderate Islamist, was elected by a unity government in January as part of a UN-backed peace initiative.

However, radical Islamists have since gained ground and control much of the south.

Somalia has been mired in civil war for 18 years.

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DUTCH CITIZENS ARRESTED IN KENYA OVER SOMALI INSURGENCY

Four Dutch nationals have been arrested in Kenya on suspicion of aiding insurgents in Somalia.

The four 21-year-olds, three born in Morocco, the other in Somalia, were stopped by Kenyan police as they were heading for the border.

The local police were not satisfied with their claims to be tourists.

There have been a series of recent reports that young men from the US, Europe and South Asia have joined the Somali insurgents in a “holy war”.

Lamu District Commissioner Stephen Ikua told the BBC the four had travelled by boat from Lamu island before hiring a tractor.

He said it was possible they were headed to Somalia to assist one of the insurgent groups there and they would be interrogated in Nairobi.

The Kenyan authorities say they have arrested and deported several other young men from Tanzania and the United States in the same area for the same reason.

BBC East Africa correspondent Will Ross says in recent months eyewitnesses in Somalia have reported seeing foreigners amongst the insurgent fighters known as al-Shabab.

Al-Shabab wants to overthrow the UN-backed transitional government in Somalia and put in place strict Islamic law.

The hardline Islamists control much of southern Somalia.

Foreigners have headed to Somalia to take part in what they consider a holy war or jihad.

The authorities in Minnesota in the United States are investigating claims that several young men were lured to Somalia to fight.

Since early May, the fighting between the insurgents and the forces loyal to Somalia’s government has displaced nearly 250,000 people.

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SHARIA TRIAL FOR SOMALI HOSTAGE

Two French security advisers seized in Somalia will be tried under Sharia law, an official from their captors, the Islamic al-Shabab militia, says. The unnamed spokesman said they would be tried for spying and “conspiracy against Islam”. The two, who were training government troops, were kidnapped by gunmen in a Mogadishu hotel on Tuesday and later handed over to al-Shabab insurgents.

Al-Shabab and its allies control much of southern Somalia. The al-Shabab official said no date had been set for the trial of the two men. They were on an official mission to train the forces of the interim government, which has recently appealed for foreign help to tackle Islamist insurgents.

Moderate Islamist President Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed was sworn in in January after UN-brokered peace talks. He promised to introduce Sharia law but the hardliners accuse him of being a western stooge. Somalia has not had a functioning national government since 1991.

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TWO FRENCH NATIONALS KIDNAPPED IN SOMALIA BY GUNMEN

Somali armed men stormed into a hotel in the capital Mogadishu on Tuesday and kidnapped two French security consultants working for the government, a hotel worker said. The two French men, whose names were not immediately available, were initially thought to be journalists. But a government official told Reuters that they had pretended to be reporters for their own protection.

“They were security consultants who arrived in Somalia to train state house security guards, not journalists,” said the official.

Several gunmen, some in uniform, entered the Sahafi Hotel threatened the hotel guards and took away the Frenchmen from their hotel rooms, the hotel manager, who declined to be named told Reuters.

“The two males told me they were journalists,” he added.

The hotel is popular with ministers in the government of President Sheikh Sharif Ahmed, and several live there and were in their rooms during the early morning raid.

A police officer who did not want to be named told Reuters that they had captured one of the three cars used by the gunmen.

“We have captured one of the cars,” he said, adding that he did not know where the French men had been taken.

Another witness said the gunmen, some of whom were dressed in uniform similar to that worn by Somali government troops, drove towards Mogadishu’s Bakara market, an Islamist stronghold, he added.

Hardline Islamist insurgents who are fighting the government control all but a few blocks of the capital. Fighting in Somalia since Ethiopian troops ousted the Islamic Courts Union in late 2006 has killed at least 18,000 and sent hundreds of thousands more fleeing from their homes.

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U.N CHIEF ACCUSES SOMALI REBELS OF WAR CRIME

The United Nations human rights chief said on Friday that Islamist insurgents in Somalia had executed civilians and set off bombs in residential areas, violations which she said may amount to war crimes. Navi Pillay, U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, cited credible reports that rebels had also set up tribunals which have handed down death sentences by stoning and decapitation and also ordered amputations.

Civilians, especially women and children, are bearing the brunt of the latest violence in the lawless Horn of Africa country, she said, as government troops try to drive insurgents out of their bases in the capital Mogadishu. “Witnesses have told U.N. investigators that the so-called al Shabaab groups fighting to topple the transitional government have carried out extrajudicial executions, planted mines, bombs and other explosive devices in civilian areas and used civilians as human shields,” Pillay said in a statement.

“Fighters from both sides are reported to have used torture and fired mortars indiscriminately into areas populated or frequented by civilians,” she said. “Some of these acts might amount to war crimes”. Al Qaeda-linked fighters in al Shabaab control much of southern and central Somalia and all but a few blocks of the capital. Neighbouring countries and western governments fear if the Somali government is overthrown, the country will become a safe haven for al Qaeda training camps and militants will destabilise the region.

Pillay, a former U.N. war crimes prosecutor, said rights activists, aid workers, journalists and the displaced are especially vulnerable. Six journalists have been killed in Mogadishu this year, including four apparently assassinated, she said. There was also increasing evidence that “various forces” in Somalia are recruiting child soldiers, a serious violation of international human rights and humanitarian law, she said.

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AU MAY STRENGHTEN FORCE OVER CONTINEOUS FIGHTING IN SOMALIA

Heavy fighting in the Somali capital killed at least 20 people on Thursday, the second day of fierce clashes as government forces tried to drive hardline Islamists out of their Mogadishu bases. Al Qaeda-linked fighters in Somalia’s al Shabaab rebel group are battling to oust President Sheikh Sharif Ahmed, himself a former Islamist insurgent who joined a peace process last year.

Al Shabaab and allied fighters control much of southern and central Somalia and have boxed the government and 4,300 African Union peacekeepers into a few blocks of Mogadishu. “The streets were horrific,” ambulance service official Ali Muse told Reuters. “We’ve transported 20 dead bodies and 55 injured in the latest fighting.”

Western nations and Somalia’s neighbours worry that if the rebels succeed in toppling Ahmed, the Horn of Africa nation will become a safe haven for al Qaeda training camps, and hardline Islamists will destabilise the region. At an African Union summit in Libya, AU leaders discussed beefing up their force and whether to give the troops a stronger mandate to take the fight to the rebels.

At present, the troops from Uganda and Burundi are largely confined to their bases and protect key sites such as the presidential palace, airport and seaport.

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