I haven't done a very good job, but in my posts about Amanda Lindhout and Nigel Brennan I've tried to avoid using a know-it-all, old-Africa-hand tone. But the truth is that from the moment they were kidnapped it was obvious......more
Rob Crilly - African Safari
Recently in Somalia Category
Journalists Freed in Somalia
It's wonderful news that the two journalists kidnapped last year in Mogadishu have been freed today after 15 months. The dribs and drabs of news coming out of Somalia have at times suggested Amanda Lindhout and Nigel Brennan might......more
Getting It Wrong in Somalia Over and Over Again
Al Shabaab is a nasty, thuggish organisation that started as a protection unit for visiting al Qaeda operatives and has today morphed into a network of clan-based Islamist militias, which controls a good chunk of southern, central Somalia. It has......more
Time for a Change
It's almost five years since I arrived to live and work in Kenya. Gradually the feelings of excitement and adventure have given way to a sense of deja vu as the same stories come around again and again. Every year......more
Roll With It
Aid workers in Dadaab - the world's largest refugee camp, set up in 1991 to cater for Somalis fleeing civil war - tell me that families always ask for cylindrical jerry cans rather than ones with square edges. The reason......more
Who's Got Your Back?
Newspapers are going to the wall and freelancers in all industries are struggling as the ranks of the self-employed are swollen by the newly de-salaried. Not a good time to be a freelance journalist. There seems to be more and......more
A Good Day for the Pirates
Pirates with the MV Faina (US Navy pic) It looks like The Faina, hijacked by Somali pirates in September with 33 Russian tanks destined for South Sudan, is finally being freed for a record $3.2-3.5m ransom. No definitive confirmation from the......more
Somalia's Best Chance of Peace
Funny how things work out. Two years ago Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed was on the run from an Ethiopian assault that had snatched Mogadishu from the Islamists who ran the city peacefully for six months. America had given its tacit......more
They're Under Starter's Orders
William Hill is sadly not running a book on tomorrow's Somali presidential election. So for what it's worth, here are tomorrow's runners 3/1jf Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed - went down heavily a couple of years back but is out to......more
Piracy Faces Challenge - Possibly...
Expect to see the current decline in pirate attacks continue, if my sources have got it right. The reason - although the Yanks are keen to claim "mission accomplished" on behalf of their maritime patrols - is the election of......more
Rob Crilly in Jerusalem
Rob Crilly is a freelance journalist based in Jerusalem writing for The Sunday Telegraph and The Daily Mail. He spent...