Day: October 31, 2021

MOGADISHU, SOMALIA —

Among the once-taboo professions emerging from Somalia’s decades of conflict and Islamic extremism is the world of arts, and a 21-year-old female painter has faced more opposition than most.

A rare woman artist in the highly conservative Horn of Africa nation, Sana Ashraf Sharif Muhsin lives and works amid the rubble of her uncle’s building that was partially destroyed in Mogadishu’s years of war.

Despite the challenges that include the belief by some Muslims that Islam bars all representations of people, and the search for brushes and other materials for her work, she is optimistic.

“I love my work and believe that I can contribute to the rebuilding and pacifying of my country,” she said.

Sana stands out for breaking the gender barrier to enter a male-dominated profession, according to Abdi Mohamed Shu’ayb, a professor of arts at Somali National University. She is just one of two female artists he knows of in Somalia, with the other in the breakaway region of Somaliland.

And yet Sana is unique “because her artworks capture contemporary life in a positive way and seek to build reconciliation,” he said, calling her a national hero.

Sana, a civil engineering student, began drawing at the age of 8, following in the footsteps of her maternal uncle, Abdikarim Osman Addow, a well-known artist.

“I would use charcoal on all the walls of the house, drawing my vision of the world,” Sana said, laughing. More formal instruction followed, and she eventually assembled a book from her sketches of household items like a shoe or a jug of water.

But as her work brought her more public attention over the years, some tensions followed.

“I fear for myself sometimes,” she said, and recalled a confrontation during a recent exhibition at the City University of Mogadishu. A male student began shouting “This is wrong!” and professors tried to calm him, explaining that art is an important part of the world.

Many people in Somalia don’t understand the arts, Sana said, and some even criticize them as disgusting. At exhibitions, she tries to make people understand that art is useful and “a weapon that can be used for many things.”

A teacher once challenged her skills by asking questions and requiring answers in the form of a drawing, she said.

“Everything that’s made is first drawn, and what we’re making is not the dress but something that changes your internal emotions,” Sana said. “Our paintings talk to the people.”

Her work at times explores the social issues roiling Somalia, including a painting of a soldier looking at the ruins of the country’s first parliament building. It reflects the current political clash between the federal government and opposition, she said, as national elections are delayed.

Another painting reflects abuses against vulnerable young women “which they cannot even express.” A third shows a woman in the bare-shouldered dress popular in Somalia decades ago before a stricter interpretation of Islam took hold and scholars urged women to wear the hijab.

But Sana also strives for beauty in her work, aware that “we have passed through 30 years of destruction, and the people only see bad things, having in their mind blood and destruction and explosions. … If you Google Somalia, we don’t have beautiful pictures there, but ugly ones, so I’d like to change all that using my paintings.”

Sana said she hopes to gain further confidence in her work by exhibiting it more widely, beyond events in Somalia and neighboring Kenya.

But finding role models at home for her profession doesn’t come easily.

Sana named several Somali artists whose work she admires, but she knows of no other female ones like herself.

Source: Voice of America

The United Nations discussed possible steps forward with ousted Sudanese Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok Sunday, a day after hundreds of thousands of people marched in protest of last week’s military coup.

Volker Perthes, the U.N. special representative to Sudan, said that Hamdok is doing well but remains under house arrest in his residence.

Protesters remained in the streets Sunday, many of them manning barricades and blocking roads after large demonstrations on Saturday turned deadly.

Three people were shot dead by security forces in Khartoum’s sister city of Omdurman Saturday, bringing the number of civilians killed since last Monday’s coup to 14.

Despite some protests and roadblocks, Khartoum returned to relative quiet as strikes in various sectors continued in defiance of General Abdel-Fattah Burhan’s seizure of power and declaration of a state of emergency.

The October 25 move dissolved a transitional government established in August 2019, after months of deadly protests following the ouster of longtime dictator Omar al-Bashir.

Since then, the U.N. and United States have frozen aid to Sudan – a move likely to have a devastating impact on the country which is already suffering an economic crisis.

International condemnation of the military takeover and demands to restore the transitional government echo the calls of hundreds of thousands of protesters in Sudan.

Images and video footage from Khartoum and other cities Saturday showed crowds carrying Sudanese flags and banners denouncing the military government. Chants and songs that were sung in 2019 when protesters demanded al-Bashir’s ouster have been revived in the latest demonstrations.

Protests took place around the world as well, with thousands of Sudanese from across the United States marching through Washington Saturday.

The military takeover occurred after weeks of escalating tensions involving military and civilian leaders over Sudan’s transition to democracy.

But even after the landmark power-sharing agreement in 2019, in which Hamdok was named the country’s leader, protests continued. Demonstrators, who often used the word “Medaniya,” or civilian, to call for a civilian government, opposed any military control in the transitional government.

Burhan said Tuesday the army’s overthrow of the transitional government was necessary to avoid a civil war.

Source: Voice of America

ADDIS ABABA/NAIROBI —

Two different groups fighting Ethiopia’s central government said they had seized control of towns Sunday as the prime minister appealed for citizens to take up arms.

The spreading conflict threatens to further destabilize Africa’s second-most-populous nation, once considered a stable Western ally in a volatile region.

Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed urged citizens to join the fight against the Tigray People’s Liberation Front, or the TPLF, the party in control of the rebellious northern region of Tigray, after Tigrayan forces said they took another town on a highway linking the capital of the landlocked nation to the port of Djibouti.

“Our people should march…with any weapon and resources they have to defend, repulse and bury the terrorist TPLF,” Abiy said in a Facebook post Sunday night.

Claims of gains

TPLF spokesperson Getachew Reda said Tigrayan forces have seized the town of Kombolcha and its airport in the Amhara region. He spoke to Reuters by phone from an unknown location.

On Sunday night, insurgents from Oromiya, Ethiopia’s most populous region, said they had also seized the town of Kemise, 53 kilometers south of Kombolcha on the same highway to the capital Addis Ababa.

Odaa Tarbii, a spokesperson for the Oromo Liberation Army (OLA), said the group had taken Kemise, 325 kilometers from Addis Ababa, and were engaging government forces.

The OLA is an outlawed splinter group of the Oromo Liberation Front, a formerly banned opposition group that returned from exile after Abiy took office in 2018. The Oromo are Ethiopia’s largest ethnic group; many of their political leaders have been imprisoned under Abiy’s government.

In August, the OLA and the TPLF announced a military alliance, heaping pressure on the central government.

Central government spokesperson Legesse Tulu, Ethiopian military spokesperson Col. Getnet Adane and Amhara regional spokesperson Gizachew Muluneh did not immediately respond requests for comment on the TPLF and the OLA’s claims.

Reuters could not independently verify Getachew’s claim as phone lines in Kombolcha appeared to be down Sunday. Reuters could not reach anyone in Kemise.

On Sunday, the Amhara regional government said in a statement “all government institutions must suspend their regular activities and should direct their budget and all their resources to the survival campaign…. officials on every level should mobilize and lead…to the front.”

They announced a curfew of 8 p.m. and urged citizens to provide private vehicles to support the campaign.

Yearlong war

War broke nearly a year ago between federal troops and the TPLF, which dominated Ethiopian politics for nearly three decades before Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed was appointed in 2018. The conflict has killed thousands of civilians and forced more than two million people to flee their homes.

Tigrayan forces were initially beaten back, but recaptured most of Tigray in July. They then pushed into the neighboring Amhara and Afar regions, displacing hundreds of thousands more civilians.

Regional forces from Amhara have fought alongside the military in Tigray. The two regions of Amhara and Tigray have a long-running boundary dispute over farmland in Western Tigray, currently under the control of the Amhara administration.

In mid-October, the Tigrayan forces said the military had mounted an offensive to push them out of Amhara. The military has accused the Tigrayan forces of starting the recent round of fighting.

Tigrayan forces have said they will keep fighting until Amhara forces leave the heavily fortified area of Western Tigray, and until the government permits the free movement of aid into the rest of Tigray.

The United Nations has previously accused the government of a de facto blockade of Tigray, where the U.N. says around 400,000 people are living in famine conditions. The government denies blocking aid.

Source: Voice of America