Local Somalis will mourn victims

Local Somalis will mourn victims
By Lawrence Schumacher • lschumacher@stcloudtimes.com • June 27, 2009

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St. Cloud-area Somali residents today will publicly mourn victims of renewed violence in their homeland. Unrest has claimed hundreds of lives and made thousands flee the country in the last two months.



Hundreds of Somali refugees living in St. Cloud have lost friends and relatives in the latest wave of violence, said Mohamoud Mohamed, executive director of the St. Cloud Area Somali Salvation Organization.

“Almost everybody in the city has lost somebody he knows, and just in the last month or so,” he said. “They are doing barbaric things, mutilating body parts in the name of Islam.”

Somali families who have lost loved ones in the renewed fighting decided to show their grief publicly at an open gathering set for 1:30 p.m. today at Salem Lutheran Church, 90 Riverside Drive SE, Mohamed said.

“These are international terrorists that are behind this, and we are opposed to everything they stand for,” he said.

Since May 7, fighting between Islamist insurgent groups and government forces has killed at least 225 people, and displaced nearly 170,000 from their homes in the capital, Mogadishu.

Warlords and Islamic al-Shabab militants control the countryside, which has become a growing base for al-Qaida terrorists arriving from Yemen and South Asia, U.S. officials have said.

An estimated 300,000 Somalis have fled to neighboring countries in the last two months to escape the violence, which is another concern for St. Cloud-area Somalis, Mohamed said.

Somalia has not had an effective government since 1991.

The Obama administration has decided to bolster efforts to support Somalia’s embattled government by providing money for weapons and helping the military and neighboring Djibouti train Somali forces.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.