So many projects and dreams have vanished in the life of this young twenty-two year old girl. Tuesday, January 12, 2010, was a date that was  tragic and memorable for every Haitian. I am Carine Exantus, student at the Faculty of Human Sciences (FASCH) at the University of Haiti.

After my secondary studies in 2007, I went to the Faculty and I chose to study communications, among all the other studies taught there. This Tuesday, January 12 has left two marks in my thoughts.

My story

Around one o clock in the afternoon, I witnessed the murder of a professor at the University, named Jean Anil Louis Juste. It was with a lot of pain that the students of FASCH overcame this sad moment of the death of a sociology doctor. Two men with motorcycles pulled up at the intersection of the Capois and Lafleur du Chene roads. The day was already hard enough to bear when around 4:45 PM, the violent earthquake of January 12th started.

After the murder of my professor, I had gone home – disconcerted and downhearted – through the public transport. Suddenly, the van – in which I was traveling – lost its balance. Panicked, the driver slowed down quickly, throwing all the passengers into the road. I found myself on the ground, in the road, traumatized. I realized that there had been an earthquake. Lying in the middle of the road, I noticed the collapse of several buildings in the area.

Although I was in shock, I had the presence of mind to look for a shelter to protect myself from the concrete which was about to fall on me. Having seen that the Sylvio Cator Stadium was open and understanding already the frightened people (who were taking refuge there), I threw myself into a parking space in the stadium to keep myself out of danger.

Finding my family

Observing the numerous losses – in human life and in material things – I was worried more and more about my family. My legs felt dead. I couldn’t even speak yet. I was stretched out on the ground in the hope of clearing my head. But hearing the sobs of wounded people and of family members of the victims, my anguish grew.

No news of my relatives. Fear seized me. I couldn’t walk. So I spent the whole night, sitting on the ground, thinking of the fate of my family members, of my mother and my brother in particular. For me, it was the longest night, as long as every aftershock that punctuated the night terrified me.

Panic

The next day, around five in the morning, I left the stadium in the direction of my home to know what had happened to my family and our house. On the way, I came across dead bodies, wounded people. The people were panicked. All these sights did not ease my anguish. On the way I had the feeling that there would be victims at the house. Arriving at the Place du Marron  Inconnu, I met a neighbor who told me that my gentle mother had looked for me desperately all last night at the Champ du Mars. All of a sudden, I became less worried, knowing that the person most dear to me in the world was alive. A little later, several meters away, I met my wonderful little mother. We hugged like old friends who hadn’t seen each other in a long time. We cried out in joy and pleasure.

My mother told me that our house had been destroyed and that we had lost two members of our family. I couldn’t contain my tears. I no longer had the courage to go towards my house. We had to find a place where we would be, “more calm.” It was thus that we became refugees at the Place pigeon. We spent the whole day of Wednesday January 13, 2010 there. Night fell and we slept on the wet grass, spreading out just two sheets that a neighbor had offered us.

Our new life

Thus our new life started to which I must adapt to survive from day to day. It’s my duty to start over at zero. I spent the whole weekend of the earthquake sleeping – with my family – under the moonlight and on the wet grass. Thus, we started to reflect on how to make a small shelter to protect ourselves from the sun and the rain. We procured some wooden posts in order to make a shelter. Neighbors and friends gave us bedding and shared cleaning and cooking materials with us. Thus, it’s these precious objects that we struggle with in our new reality that has imposed itself on us, and we don’t know how long it will be until we can get rid of them.

This blog post was originally written in French by the writer Carine Exantus, a student living in a refugee camp in Haiti. It was translated into English by the Conversations for a Better World team.

Liberia is emerging from a 14-year (1989 – 2003) brutal civil war. This included recruiting a significant number of school aged children, who were trained to become rebels and taught the art of war. This war destroyed millions of dollars worth of property, displaced millions of people, both internally and externally, and ended over a quarter million lives. In addition, children who did not participate in the war often witnessed violent acts, including death or torture of family members and friends. They were also displaced from their families and became refugees in strange lands. Some were falsely imprisoned and suffered torture and other forms of abuse.

Refugees and displaced persons are relocating to their communities. By 2005, warring factions were disarmed, demobilized, and rehabilitated. Rebel groups were transformed into political parties and contested for elected seats. By January of 2006, Liberians inaugurated Ellen Johnson Sirleaf as Africa’s first female president. Today, the sound of heavy military weapons has ended. Renovations, repairs, and rebuilding work have begun on damaged infrastructure, roads, and bridges. Despite these developments, youth-initiated violence persists, which continues to result in the destruction of property and needlessly ends lives.

Since the general elections in November 2005, recent youth-related violence has resulted in the burning of police stations in Nimba, Bong, and Margibi counties. In March of 2010, a 10th grade student from a Lutheran high school located in Zorzor, Lofa County went missing while visiting her family. Her friends when looking for her and found her body near a mosque four days later. The youths, predominantly Christians presumed that since their friend body was found within the vicinity of the mosque, they allotted her death to the Muslim community. Without taking the case to the police or court, the youths resolve to take the judicial process into their own hands which resulted in ending seven lives, wounding several hundred of people, and destructing property, which included a mosque and three churches.

Unfortunately, the absence of war, the disarmament of rebel factions, and holding of democratic elections, does not represent peace in Liberia. Evidence from Liberia continues to demonstrate the brutal nature of youth initiated violence, because these children have come to embrace the culture of violence as a way of life. These youths who were perpetrators and victims of violence are like ticking time bombs – waiting to explode at any time. They remain scarred from a life of unending conflict – all they have known in their short lives is killing and war. The challenge of reintegrating Liberian youths certainly holds the key to sustainable post-conflict reconstruction in Liberia. As such, there is a serious need to “reteach” these who were perpetrators and victims of war the prescripts of peaceful civility and imbue them with tools for peaceful problem-solving and peer mediation.

Since the beginning of 2009, the Center for Peace Education (CPE) has been teaching Peace Education as a subject in several grade schools in Liberia – for the first time in the country’s history. CPE conducts its lessons through a therapeutic process of dance, art, drama, songs, poems, drawing, etc so as to portray a culture of peace, reconciliation, creative self-esteem, expression, and a world of tolerance. This form of peace education is designed to focus not only on non-violence and social justice, but is a comprehensive program that stresses the rehumanization of the child. This model fuses both classroom curriculum and extracurricular components to build a comprehensive, multi-stage peace education program for Liberia.

CPE is also teaching conflict resolution and peer mediations skills in various local communities. This integrative approach seeks to use the educational system to address perceptual behavior and cognitive identity, and it also seeks to address economic, cultural, social, and the root causes of the conflict. Through CPE’s lessons, students are not only learning that peace is possible, but more importantly, how to make it possible.

Investing in peace education will reap a protracted peace in Liberia’s post-conflict reconstruction. Investing in Peace Education is the best way forward, which I strongly believe is firmly needed during Liberia’s post conflict reconstruction. The Center for Peace Education is not solely about teaching peace, but showing people how to live in PEACE each day.

For more information on CPE work and activities please follow the links below:
Blog: http://peacefulliberia.blogspot.com/
Website: http:// www.peaceedu.org

RELATED STORIES

• As Liberia stabilizes, youth begin to talk about sexuality (conversationsforabetterworld.com)
• Obama to welcome Liberian president to White House (seattletimes.nwsource.com)
• Unity in Diversity – Liberians Unite! (one.org)
• With God All Things Are Possible Group : Liberia (socialactions.net)

Three months after the violent earthquake of January 12, 2010, the situation of the families in the refugee camp at Place Pigeon remains just as hard. The problems of housing, food, health and security persist. No families wanted to spend all this time living in a camp located in the historic center of the capital.

Finding shelter

Some families whose houses weren’t destroyed or who have perhaps found a more secure shelter have abandoned this camp, destroying their makeshift shelters. But most of the families are still there. After every rain shower, these families rebuild their shelters with whatever materials they can find.

Food

Each family’s diet depends on their economic means. The families who have sick members take them to the health center set up at the police station named Anti-gang, located near the camp.

Security

In terms of security, some things are starting to get better thanks to the hard work of the police officers of the national police of Haiti (PNH). The PNH has strengthened surveillance of the camp to counteract the illegal activity of criminals who more and more have been giving the camp a bad reputation. They only prevent family disputes which continue in the camp, encouraged by the promiscuity. These families often resort to the police to help resolve their personal differences.

Cleaning up

Since April 17, 2010, people have noticed an operation involving the removal of garbage in all the camps of the Champ de Mars, including Place Pigeon. Those involved in this operation wear red shirts with a “Save the Children” logo. The helmets differ from one camp to another, differentiating those working in each camp. In Place Pigeon, they wear red helmets. A committee supervises this work. The workers are made up of people living in the camp and outsiders who have been recruited for this operation, “Cash for work.” Daily pay is 200 gourdes (or about $5 USD). Certain families in the camp complain about the presence of outsiders doing this clean up job. The work starts at 7 in the morning and finishes at 1 in the afternoon. The workers clean the camp and around it with materials received from “Save the Children.”

This blog post was originally written in French by the writer Carine Exantus, a student living in a refugee camp in Haiti. It was translated into English by the Conversations for a Better World team.

At Place Pigeon, a neglected refugee camp constructed after the earthquakes of January 12, 2010, the expectations of families housed in this temporary shelter remain the same. Their situation hasn’t changed, and every family maintains their own shelter as best they can. It’s as if the earthquake just happened yesterday in terms of the quality of life for these people. This camp reflects a complete absence of planning or help from authority figures concerning how to organize this poor area.

A committee hasn’t emerged to run the camp, despite the unstable situation, where families search for a way to adapt, especially those without a shelter.

Sanitation

In terms of sanitation, only water is always available. Everyone bathes publicly because of the unhygienic situation of the showers that the committee had installed. The gathering of garbage is one of the biggest problems families confront. Each family clears out their household garbage and cleans only their own area.

Weather

After the rain, it’s impossible to walk around the camp due to the mud. And even when it doesn’t rain, there are still swampy areas of stagnant water near the showers that had been put up, which expose the refugees to illness.

The problem of toilets was resolved with the JEDCO toilets installed by ACF (Action Against Hunger), the institution with the most visible presence on the Place Pigeon. It organizes meetings for awareness raising for women and children, teaching them how to take precautions and what to do remain in good health and avoid illness caused by the lack of hygiene.

Food distribution

During the last few weeks, IOM (International Organization for Migration) took a census at Champ du Mars, including Place Pigeon, by giving each family an identification card. With this card, families at the camp took part in a distribution. The families that were registered received a hygiene kit from CRS (Catholic Relief Service), a sack of wheat from USAID, flour, and beans. Families showed their contentment by saying that this was the first time that they had received food aid since they’d been living in the camp.

Safety and security

In terms of security, this is one of the camps at Champ du Mars that has a bad reputation for its lack of safety. Often escapees frequent the Place Pigeon, which attracts attention of National Police officers. Almost every night, the police come to the camp and arrest alleged criminals.

After International Women’s Day on March 8, a young man was arrested at the camp for attempted rape on March 10, 2010.

Almost every night, the police arrest two or three young men. The young women here are subjected to ill treatment from their husbands or partners. They are left vulnerable to all forms of violence: physical, sexual, psychological, etc. Because of this, some of them are even more worried about their deplorable situation.

Tuesday March 23, 2010, more than forty people were arrested, among them, one young girl. Most of them were escaped prisoners from the National Prison. Those who weren’t escapees or problem causers were released, about five of them. From then on, people noticed young men coming and going around the camp.

This blog post was originally written in French by the writer Carine Exantus, a student living in a refugee camp in Haiti. It was translated into English by the Conversations for a Better World team.

Place Pigeon, a camp situated at a strategic point on the Champ de Mars, near the presidential palace of the Ministry of Culture and Communication and the 2004 tour. The atmosphere is becoming more and more monotonous.

The most vital needs of every family living in the camp remain: food, shelter and health care.

Food

It’s been over a month since the families received a little bag full of nine pots of rice. There hasn’t been any other food distributed since. Twice they have received, from Brazilian agents from United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH), portable bottles of water. This distribution took place in front of the “Palais National.”

The families in the camp are complaining that they’ve been abandoned. They’re doing their best to feed themselves with what little they have.

The need for shelter

The makeshift shelters grow every day. Everyone is trying to protect themselves from the sun and the rain and they are resorting to wooden pots, plastic, plywood, and sheet metal. Families have procured these materials — which most people don’t know where they got them from — by their own means.

Every time it rains, some families touch up — or reconstruct — their shelters to better protect themselves. They dig tunnels around their shelters to prevent the water from coming in. No weather condition is favorable to these shelters. When the sun is out, the families complain of the heat which is very strong inside their shelters. When it rains, it’s practically impossible to go around in the camp because of the mud caused by the rain.

Weather conditions

The families, already vulnerable to the least amount of rain, have become panicked at the news of the cyclonic season (June 1 to November 31). Every family on the Place Pigeon needs a tent to deal with this way of life.

No one notices any donation, whatever it is: food, shelter, etc. Some institutions have carried out censuses which were not followed by any concrete action. The International Migration Organization (OIM) carried out a census of families with the goal of identifying people without shelter or families (giving them an identification card). Action Against Hunger (ACF) has also done a census of families and raised awareness about hygiene. Volunteers for National Development (VDH) has raised awareness among young people in the camp about safe sex. The Ministry of the Interior and Semi Autonomous Regions has also carried out a census, whose results we haven’t seen.

Keeping clean

To keep one’s shelter clean is one of the biggest priorities for people living there, in order to prevent illness. Each family cleans their own area where they live and collects their garbage in a little bag near their shelter. Certain families throw their bags on a pile of rubbish nearby; others throw them in a big garbage can near the Marron Inconnu statue.

Hygiene and bathing

During the first weeks immediately following the earthquake, people noticed the presence of a seven member committee that was trying to organize the camp in its own way. Now, it’s no longer here. The committee had constructed showers that weren’t very convenient. Because the water for bathing — which flowed out of a hole — reached the camp, stagnated and infested the camp with mosquitoes. Now, the showers are in a bad state; people can no longer use them.

Sometimes, there isn’t enough water in the reservoirs that ACF installed for domestic uses. ACF had also installed JEDCO toilets. These were not cleaned regularly. They smelled bad. This made the people take them far from camp and scattered them in the road.

This blog post was originally written in French by the writer Carine Exantus, a student living in a refugee camp in Haiti. It was translated into English by the Conversations for a Better World team.

On the Place Pigeon, the need for food is the primary goal of every family living in the camp. Certain families have received coupons for a small bag of rice, but only women are allowed to line up for distribution.

According to other families who haven’t received these, the committee has given these coupons out to people close to their own families. This distribution took place near the Palais National on Friday January 29, very early in the morning.

Access to shelter

From the evening of Wednesday February 10 to Thursday February 11, there was some rain, and the families all had to get up to make sure that the water didn’t damage the sheets that they were using both as shelter and as a bed. All their things got wet. The next day, the families washed their sheets, spread their belongings out to dry in the sun and tried to put together their shelters again with wood and plastic. Thus, protests started because no one in charge had foreseen this and taken steps to prevent the shelters from becoming wet.

The families want access to tents, only the families with greater economic means have bought tents, whose origins no one knows.

Often, you see people in the camp who chase after people who are rumored to have coupons but these people have not been identified.

Moving the refugee camps

According to rumors going around, the government of Haiti wants to move the people in refugee camps to send them to the Place Cathedrale, located at the Rue Docteur Aubry and Bonne Foi. It’s a housing center and its construction has already started.

However, people have noticed the installation of toilets by the JEDCO company in the back of the camp.

An atmosphere of anxiety

In the middle of the camp, near the back fence, shelters have been put up where young girls and boys are living, who are about fifteen to twenty five years old. Often, these young people fight and make a lot of  noise, despite their risky situation since the disaster. This creates an atmosphere of anxiety for the families living in the back of the camp.

Monday January 15, 2010, around 11:00 PM, police officers came to the Place Pigeon and were able to capture two prisoners who had allegedly escaped from prison in Port-au-Prince.

More and more needs arise

Days went by, more and more needs arise. The heads of the family–or more precisely, the women–complained of only having rice and that they needed other food to cook with and that rice wasn’t enough to feed their families.

In terms of health care, Cuban and Haitian doctors provided care to those wounded in the earthquake and to people suffering from illness. They are here almost every day between nine and twelve o’clock.

Presently, about a dozen of the JEDCO toilets are working, six for women and six for men. Only two are open at night. JEDCO provides toilet paper and a small tank of water and soap to use.

Shelter from the elements

Because of the strong rain in the evenings from Wednesday through Friday, the families living in this camp are reconstructing their cloth shelters by digging canals all around their shelters to avoid getting wet. This has sparked protests for tents from families so that they can protect themselves from the rain.

This blog post was originally written in French by the writer Carine Exantus, a student living in a refugee camp in Haiti. It was translated into English by the Conversations for a Better World team.

After the earthquake on January 12, 2010, which had a 7.3 rating on the Richter scale, many survivors and victims have taken refuge on la Place de la Paix, commonly called the Place Pigeon. Since then, this place has become their living space, until further notice.

The violent earthquake and its almost fifty aftershocks have caused loss of human life, trauma, and damage in neighboring areas of the Place. There is a great need for families to find shelters to settle down so that they can protect themselves against any unexpected aftershocks.

Looking for a makeshift shelter

In the search for a makeshift shelter, each family, with a few sheets, looks for a place in the refugee camp to take shelter and meet their survival needs. Every family must dig holes and put wooden posts into the ground to make a so called shelter or house. To protect against the sun, the head of the family digs holes in the ground for the wooden posts on which they hang four sheets (as walls) and another sheet for a roof.

Many needs

There are many needs: water, physiological needs, a place to bathe. People are doing all they can to meet these needs.

For water, during the first few days after the earthquake, people returned to the Montalais road, a neighboring road, to find this precious liquid in houses, from water pipes with little or no damage, that can be distributed to others. A little while later, ACF International News installed a water tank on the Place Pigeon to meet this need.

In terms of physiological needs, each family monitors their little tent to make sure that no one enters it to relieve themselves. In fact, at times, some people relieve themselves in these “bathrooms” when no one else is around.

Awareness campaigns and education

In addition, as awareness is raised and people become informed about how to prevent illness caused by lack of hygiene, the refugees are starting to pick up the garbage. Each family does this, using a little sack near their cloth tent. No one knows how people are relieving themselves. Each family tries to find their own way to take care of their physiological needs.

Forming a committee

A committee with seven members has formed. This committee has aims to organize and address the needs of the Place Pigeon, in the situation where an institution voluntarily provides help, whatever kind it is. The committee has had showers built from wood or plastic whose origin they’re unaware of. These showers are not comfortable or convenient. Few people use them.

The committee is organizing a religious service every Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and Sunday, at 5 PM. The people of Place Pigeon are attending half halfheartedly.

Promiscuity

In the refugee camp, most people are youths or children. There are even newborns or babies still under six months. Many small houses or cloth tents are inhabited by young girls or boys living together, exposed to all kind of inappropriate behavior.

More than a month after the earthquake, there are rarely authority figures present.

Many survivors of the conflict in Colombia have fled to Venezuela to take refuge where they face problems like unemployment and poverty. However, a workshop has given some refugee children the opportunity to express themselves through photography.

Counting the consequences for the victims of the armed conflict in Colombia can be extremely difficult. Survivors and refugees have had to run from their own land and cross the Venezuelan border in order to guarantee security for their families. However, even then, the situation often does not get much better. Immigration problems, unemployment, poverty and other forms of insecurity have hurt the quality of life for these families.

Focusing on children

Within these communities, children can often be the most vulnerable, yet they have immense potential to grow. The group Ancla2, which has been featured on Global Voices last year, recognized this opportunity and gave a workshop to a group of refugee children in a town called El Nula located along the Venezuelan-Colombian border. The beautiful landscapes of the region were the backdrop for the workshop, which taught the children how to approach and appreciate the details of daily live and to have a sense a community. They communicated this through the use of photography and creative writing.

An ignored community expresses itself

Thus, the blog El Nula por la Paz [es] shows the experience and the results of these workshops telling the story of a community often ignored by the mainstream media. As the site’s description reads:

Some of the workshop’s participants are featured on the blog. Cleida, 13, chooses to photograph and to write about the cows she sees around her community [in Spanish]:

Photo by Cleida and used with permission

I’m going to write about the cows. Cows give milk, and I saw this cow that I am writing about when we were on our way to La Playita. The cow had a newborn baby and a dog was eating the cow’s placenta. I took a picture and then we went to the place where this cow was, and I loved seeing its beautiful little calf.

Fourteen-year-old Álvaro took a picture of his mom and titled the post “my mom is like a rose [in Spanish]”:

Photo by Álvaro and used with permission

I took this picture because she’s my mom and I love her very much. The other picture I took was of our neighbour because she’s very kind to all people and she teaches senior citizens and children. I like to take pictures of my mom, the neighbours, the animals and other things, and also of people that went to the workshops. I took pictures of our teacher, Álvaro, of people in the street, people I know. The picture I liked the most was that of my mom and Ingrid.

Photo by Ancla2 and used with permission.

The project also attracted admiration from others in the citizen media community. David Sasaki, published a post about this project that adds more context about the ongoing conflict and the refugees:

What I love about this project is that it doesn’t just represent El Nula as a war zone like every other reference to the community that you’ll find online. No, it shows El Nula through the eyes of those who live there. When tragedy hits next then the young people of El Nula will know how to use online tools to spread awareness and seek help. But until then, they also know how to spread awareness about all the good in their lives as well.

This blog post was originally published on Global Voices on .

As Haiti slowly treads on the path to recovery and rebuilding, there is a sense of renewed concern for the countries children-especially the orphans. Various news agencies have been reporting on child traffickers targeting vulnerable children in the country, including this report at CNN.

The orphan debate has a lot of US connections because the arrested church group was American and a lot of the orphans were destined for USA if adoptions continued. On the US blogosphere, the opinion on the missionaries seems to be divided, and the attitude of the US Department of State is also being questioned.

At the legal blog Right Juris, blogger Ryan questions the State Department’s handling of the situation. In the light of facts that have emerged-that 22 out of 33 “orphans” the missionaries were trying to get to an orphanage in the Dominican Republic have living parents, and the group did not have necessary permission and documentation to take the children out of country; the State Department has decided to take the “hands off” approach.

No matter what happens the US Missionaries Charged with kidnapping Haitian orphans appear to be stuck in Haiti for quite some time. They will be there even longer if the State Department doesn’t help try and secure their release, or a transfer of the case to The United States. The question though is should the State Department intervene? What do you think? Should this group be tried and convicted of kidnapping? Should the U.S. government press for their release? Did the group really have only good intentions when they attempted to flee the country with 33 Haitian children? I would love to hear your thoughts.

Brazen attempt of the missionaries to go through their mission, without ever seeking necessary permission in the United States or in Haiti has raised doubts.

Paul Shepard at the blog Black Spin says that the missionaries have a tough road ahead.

While their hearts might have been in the right place, their heads were clearly out of commission in trying to pull off such a dangerous stunt without informing government officials in the United States or Haiti about what they were doing.

No one doubts some orphans in Haiti today would be better served by moving to loving families in other countries, but that kind of effort takes time and coordination with local officials.

Te-Ping Chen at Change.org, questions the children focused relief effort in Haiti. In her thought provoking post titled “When ‘Charity’ in Haiti Kills Children”, Chen examines the effect the missionaries’ arrest is having on volunteers who want to travel to Haiti to help.

…Since the missionaries were arrested last month, the misbegotten travails of ringleader Laura Silsby & co. have had a chilling effect on doctors, aid workers and government officials (you know, the people who have a legitimate mission in helping Haiti with the recovery process) trying to save the lives of critically injured Haitian kids.

Now, the New York Times is reporting that 10 children have died or become worse while waiting for authorization from newly skittish authorities to get on flights out of the country for treatment.

Prior to the Americans’ arrest, every day, an average of 15 injured Haitian children were getting airlifted out of Haiti onto U.S.-bound flights. Since Silsby & co. bobbed onto the scene, though, only three children have been evacuated for treatment in the U.S. on private flights….

Chen joins a growing list of people, including some very well known names, who are asking whether is it an act of kindness to remove Haiti’s children from the country in search of better life. Washington Post columnist Eugene Robinson has criticized the missionaries for the brash attempt, saying that “True charity would have been to help those families care for their children — not to put them in a bus and drive them away. “

Marc Herman at a previous post in Global Voices noted that surprisingly the voice of Haitian themselves has been muted on the orphans issue. He also highlights a sudden rise of interest on Haitian children after the earthquake.

Late Wednesday evening, a Haitian judge ruled that 8 of the 10 missionaries be release immediately. They will soon be flown back to the United States, leaving behind Laura Silsby and Charisa Coulter. Sisby is the group’s leader.

The already fractured public opinion in the blogosphere is sure to get more intense over the surprise release of the 8 missionaries. There will also be speculation over why 2 missionaries-Laura Silsby and Charisa Coulter are still being held, beyond the official explanation that the judge wants to investigate why the pair had traveled to Haiti before the devastating earthquake last month. It seems that Haiti’s children will once again be on the spotlight.

This post was originally published on Global Voices on February 18, 2010.

Many bloggers believe that the Somali government is recruiting young Kenyans to fight rebels in the Horn of Africa.

This is the first roundup of Somali blogs in 2009. Yes, it’s been more than a year since I took leave a long leave from blogging but now I’m back, for good. This is the first post and expect more posts about Somali blogosphere.

Blogger Royale Somalia profiles a young female Somali doctor in Mogadishu who’d graduated last year, he writes:

In December 2008, 20 Somali students overcame huge odds and graduated from medical school in Mogadishu—the first batch to do so for almost two decades in the failed Horn of Africa state.

Dr. Hafsa Abdurrahman Mohamed, 26, was one of those receiving a diploma from the capital’s Benadir University. Upon completing her studies, she decided to work for the Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), using her skills to help provide free medical care in Somalia.

The East African Philosopher comments on Somali President Sharif Ahmed’s visit to US and the US government’s policy shift in dealing with Sharif:

In December of 2006 Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed, currently only-in-name president of the Transitional Federal Government of Somalia, was on the run from the Ethiopian army, the CIA, and the U.S. Rangers.

East African Philisophers continues:

This week Sheikh Sharif is in Minneapolis, MN (and the home of this crazy congresswoman) meeting with Congressmen, Governor, and city councilmen/mayor. Couple of months ago he had a meeting with Secretary Clinton in Nairobi during her Africa trip. From terrorist to president for Sheikh Sharif in just two years. That, friends, must be a first. To me this says a lot about the U.S.’s awful foreign policy than anything else.

The Kenya Somali Blog says Somali government is recruiting Somali youth from Kenya:

Somalia’s U.N.-backed government has recruited more than 170 young Kenyans and former servicemen to help it fight rebels in the failed Horn of Africa state, local leaders in eastern Kenya said.

Mohamed Gabow, the mayor of Garissa, told Reuters the enrolment of ethnic Somali Kenyans was being conducted at a home in Bulla Iftin village, on the outskirts of his town.

The recruitment is not a secret. Those involved are not worried. They are going around all the villages to announce the exercise,” Gabow said in an interview late on Thursday.

This blog post was originally published on Global Voices Online on October 15, 2009.