Last week in Mogadishu, unidentified gunmen attacked Ann-Margarethe Livh, a Swedish diplomat, by a major intersection, killing her Somali translator and driver and leaving her seriously wounded. This was the latest in a series of attacks in the city that have targeted foreigners and high profile Somali leaders. A bomb was recently placed in the …
Mogadishu – One of my earliest childhood memories is of swimming in a small gully near my grandmother’s home in Yaaq Bari Wayne, a dusty collection of tin-roofed adobe buildings huddled together in the plains of southern Somalia’s Bay region. After the Gu rains, the gully became a deep triangular cleft cut into the ground, …
OVERZEALOUS WESTERN BANKS THREATEN TO CHOKE OFF SOMALIA’S STRUGGLING RECOVER BY TARGETING THE HAWALA TRANSFER SYSTEM. Columbus, Ohio – Every month I visit a small grocery store in a non-descript building in Columbus, Ohio, where I live, to use a service that keeps Somalia alive: "Hawala", the traditional money transfer system used throughout the Middle-East, …
By Mohamed Ali, Founder, Iftiin Foundation and New Voices Fellow, The Aspen Institute I recently participated in a conference on fighting piracy in Somalia. The topic: how to combat the thousands of men, AK47’s strapped to their backs, that were taking skiffs into the azure blue waters of the Indian Ocean to hijack and loot …
INTERVIEW By Rohita Javangula Somalia’s reputation as a failed state often overshadows the country’s potential, but Aspen Institute 2013 New Voices Fellow Mohamed Ali, a former Somali refugee, represents a new generation of entrepreneurs working to rewrite the country’s story. After fleeing during Somalia’s conflict, Ali chose to devote his life to fighting for immigrant …