Africa's top peace and security official is appealing to Somalia's elders to use their influence to stop the piracy that threatens commercial traffic through the strategic Gulf of Aden. From African Union headquarters in Addis Ababa, VOA's Peter Hei...
The feuding leaders of Somalia's transitional government are deadlocked in a dispute over cabinet appointments as Islamist rebel forces advance to within striking distance of the capital, Mogadishu. VOA correspondent Peter Heinlein reports from Addi...
The U.N. refugee agency reports the number of uprooted Somalis arriving this year in the sprawling Dadaab refugee camp in northeastern Kenya has surpassed 45,000. The UNHCR says thousands of Somali refugees, desperate to escape fighting in their cou...
The African Union's special envoy for Somalia has condemned the rise in attacks on AU peacekeepers in the country in the past week. He asserted the right of AU troops to defend themselves, but reinforced the mission's neutrality in the country's con...
At least 13 civilians have been killed and as many as 40 wounded in fighting between Islamist insurgents and African Union peacekeepers in Somalia's capital, Mogadishu. As Derek Kilner reports from VOA's East Africa bureau in Nairobi, the fighting w...
Somali pirates, who have been relentlessly attacking ships this year off the coast of Somalia, say they will kill any European they capture if France fails to release six pirates seized by French commandos earlier this month. VOA Correspondent Alish...
Somali pirates holding a Ukrainian ship carrying military hardware are denying reports that a disagreement among the gunmen about what to do with the ship has led to a fatal shootout. But as VOA Correspondent Alisha Ryu reports from our East Africa...
A factional leader in Somalia's Eritrea-based opposition group is denying allegations by a piracy specialist in Kenya that he is aiding radical Islamists by providing them with weapons bought with money earned from piracy. Yusuf Mohamed Siad, better...
By Derek Kilner Nairobi 20 June 2008 As fighting in Somalia between Islamist insurgents and the transitional government backed by Ethiopian troops has intensified over the past year, thousands of refugees have been streaming into neighboring Kenya,...
By Alisha Ryu Nairobi 19 June 2008 Somali Islamist opposition leader Sheik Sharif Sheik Ahmed says his group signed a U.N.-mediated peace agreement with Somalia's interim government last week because the accord provides a specific timetable for an E...