The MASS CEMETERY of Europe: tens of thousands of asylum seekers drowned in the Mediterranean Sea

MORE than 23,000 desperate asylum seekers fleeing to Europe from war torn countries have drowned in the Mediterranean since the turn of the century, underlining fears the sea is turning into a mass “cemetery”.

Migrants on a boat to Lampedusa, and unmarked graves of those who have died making the journey[GETTY]

By: Owen Bennett - Political Reporter

 

The figures are higher than previously thought, and an EU report estimates that four out of five illegal immigrants in the continent now come via the Mediterranean.

As migrants take to dangerous sea routes to try and enter Europe, the number of deaths has soared.

One of the worst tragedies occurred in October last year, when more than 360 people - mainly from Eritrea, Somalia and Ghana - drowned off the coast of the Italian island of Lampedusa.

After the tragedy, the Prime Minster of Malta - which is a common destination point for asylum seekers coming from Africa - warned the Mediterranean risked becoming a "cemetery" for desperate migrants.

A survivor of the Lampedusa disaster, a drawing from a local school, and the coffins of the victims [GETTY]

A survivor of the Lampedusa disaster, a drawing from a local school, and the coffins of the victims [GETTY]

That so many die attempting to reach Europe speaks to the desperation of those fleeing war, persecution, and poverty, as well as the unscrupulous practices of human smuggling networks. 

The shocking figures have led the international humanitarian charity Human Rights Watch to call on the EU to reform its immigration policies, and focus more on saving lives than barring entry....Human Rights Watch's Judith Sunderland

The charity's senior researcher Judith Sunderland said she was not surprised at the high number of migrant deaths, as previous estimates of deaths at EU borders were "conservative".

She said: "That so many die attempting to reach Europe speaks to the desperation of those fleeing war, persecution, and poverty, as well as the unscrupulous practices of human smuggling networks.

"But it also has to do with EU migration policies that have focused more on barring entry and preventing departure, rather than on saving lives."

She added: "With respect particularly to deaths at sea, the EU should ensure that increased surveillance of the Mediterranean, including through the EUROSUR [European Border Surveillance System], is focused on the paramount duty of rescue at sea, and ensure that all patrols in the Med use a broad definition of distress so that more migrants and asylum seekers are rescued before their boat runs into serious, life-threatening trouble."

Related articles

• More bodies pulled from sunken boat
• Italy migrant death toll hits 250
• £25m EU aid for Italy's boat people
• Dozens dead as migrants' boat sinks

 

This map shows the main migration routes into the EU [EXPRESS]

Research carried out by a consortium of European journalists reveals the shift from land to sea migration.

Among its findings was that while the number of migrants travelling by land from Turkey to Greece fell from more than 55,000 in 2011 to 12,000 in 2013, the sea route between the countries saw an increase from 1,500 to 11,000 over the same period.

An EU report into migration via the Mediterranean published last month showed the majority of migrants are refugees fleeing from Syria, which has been in the grips of a devastating civil war since 2011.

While the number of illegal migrants has fallen from 140,000 in 2011 to 77,000 in the first nine months of 2013, the numbers using the Mediterranean as an entry route as risen.

There were more illegal immigrants crossing the sea in 2013 than in 2011 when the Arab Spring swept across north Africa.

The EU has broken down the Mediterranean migration along five separate routes.

From July to September last year more than half of all illegal migrants into the EU came from the Central Mediterranean route, popular with Syrians, Eritreans and Somalians.

Migration from these routes are characterised by human traffickers, and survivors of the Lampedusa incident talked of migrants being raped and tortured by the men charged with carrying them across the sea.

Jose Manuel Barroso was met with protests when he visited Lampedusa after the tragedy [GETTY]

The report recommends the EU moves away from "excessively militarised and security-centred approaches" when dealing with illegal migrants.

It also calls for EU countries to ensure "a clear distinction is drawn between criminal networks and their victims" and should also "prevent the criminalisation of migrants and of humanitarian organisations supporting migrants".

Ms Sutherland urged the EU to a develop clearer and quicker entry system for asylum seekers.

She said:  The Council of the European Union endorsed recommendations in this direction following the October 3rd tragedy off the Lampedusa coast, but we’ll have to see what concrete measures are adopted."

The latest EU report is not currently on the agenda for any upcoming meetings of the EU Parliament.

Genocide conference opens in Brussels on 20th anniversary of Rwanda mass slaughter

Brussels - A minute’s silence for the victims of genocide worldwide opened a conference in Belgium which is looking into ways of preventing mass atrocities.

It came as Rwanda marks the 20th anniversary of its own orgy of ethnic killing in which at least 800,000 people died.

It is claimed that such slaughter often begins as political events and it is up to politicians to act.

Belgian Foreign Minister Didier Reynders addressed fellow political figures, scholars and academics:

“Let’s now turn this engagement into concrete deeds in order to prevent genocide, and even better, to outlaw it,” he said. “We owe it to the memory of those who have been victims.”

In 1994, Rwandan Hutu extremists killed neighbours, friends and family during a three-month rampage of violence aimed at ethnic Tutsis and some moderate Hutus.

It had been unleashed by the fatal downing of a plane carrying Rwandan President Juvenal Habyarimana.

Thousands fled to refugee camps in neighbouring countries which grew into small cities of squalor and disease. Many of them died there from Cholera.

United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon is scheduled to address the conference on Tuesday.

euronews

Somaliland: UK Sheffield City Council to Vote on Recognising Somaliland

PRESS RELEASE

On Wednesday 2 April, Sheffield City Council will debate a motion calling on “the British government to recognise Somaliland as an independent state and to encourage other governments around the world to do the same.”

This historic debate will be attended by Somaliland’s Foreign Minister Mohamed Bihi Yonis, Energy Minister Hussein Abdi Dualeh, Speaker of Parliament Abdirahman Mohamed Abdullahi, Somaliland’s Ambassador to the UK Ali Aden Awale as well as several parliamentarians.

The motion was tabled by Councillor Mohammad Maroof who today received over 2,000 signatures from the Somaliland community in Sheffield, petitioning the council to support recognition.

On Friday 4 April, Sheffield Central MP Paul Blomfield (Lab) will be speaking at ISRAAC: Somali Community and Cultural Association in support of Somaliland’s case for recognition.

Sheffield South East MP Clive Betts (Lab) has also expressed his support for Somaliland’s independence. In 2009 he asked the FCO to “work with other members of the EU, with the United States and with members of the African Union to see how we can get recognition for Somaliland.”

Slain Kenyan Muslim cleric an avowed Al-Qaeda sympathiser

Great Kenyan Muslim cleric
Abubaker Shariff Ahmed predicted
his own violent death. PHOTO/Reuters

MOMBASA - Radical Kenyan Muslim cleric Abubaker Shariff Ahmed, better known as Makaburi, predicted his own violent death barely a month before being gunned down on the streets of Mombasa.

A firebrand preacher who was outspoken in his admiration for the late Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, Afghanistan's Taliban and Somalia's Shebab rebels, Makaburi had come to be seen by Kenyan authorities as a key instigator of home-grown Islamist terrorism.

Makaburi, who was in his 50s, was also subject to UN sanctions -- a travel ban, asset freeze and targeted arms embargo -- for being a "leading facilitator and recruiter of young Kenyan Muslims for violent militant activity in Somalia", and for having "strong ties with senior Al-Shebab members".

The cleric was gunned down on Wednesday evening in the port city of Mombasa, the third prominent Kenyan radical Islamist to be shot dead in such circumstances in as many years.

In August 2012, the Mombasa Musa mosque's radical preacher, Aboud Rogo Mohammed, was shot dead, and in October last year his successor, Sheikh Ibrahim Ismail, met the same fate on a road near Mombasa. The killings remain unsolved.

Many believe the Kenyan authorities were behind the killings, and suspicion is again likely to be directed at counter-terrorism operatives who are widely believed to be operating a shoot-to-kill, targeted assassination policy to deal with the threat of radical Islam in the Muslim-majority coastal region.

"My life is in danger. They will eventually kill me. They do that," Makaburi told AFP in an interview last month in his austere Mombasa office, in which he voiced his support for Al-Qaeda but denied being a recruiter.

"I do not support Al-Shebab, I do not know Al-Shebab. I support the implementation of sharia law anywhere in the world," Makaburi said. "These are just accusations. Where is the proof that I have recruited anybody? Who have I recruited? When, how, where? These are just accusations."

Instead, he presented himself as a defender of "true Islam" and disaffected Muslim youth -- many of whom may turn to rioting in the wake of the latest killing.

"The highest motivator for the youth to go into Somalia to fight jihad is the Kenyan government doing injustice to the Muslim youth here in Kenya. How do you think the youth feel after they were sitting peacefully in a mosque and they were invaded, shot at, killed, meant to disappear?"

'Westgate 100-percent justified'

His overt support for last year's Westgate shopping mall attack, which was claimed by Shebab, was also likely to have raised his controversial profile.

"It's our innocents for your innocents. It was justified. As per the Koran, as per the religion of Islam, Westgate was 100-percent justified," Makaburi said of the attack that left at least 67 dead, among them women and children cut down by machine-gun fire or grenades.

"Are the ones being killed and raped in Somalia not innocent?" Makaburi said, seizing on Shebab's justification for the mall attack -- Kenya's military presence in southern Somalia.

"The KDF (Kenyan army) is doing the same thing and worse in Somalia than what happened at Westgate. So as per the Islamic religion, they had every right to avenge whatever the KDF is doing in Somalia."

The real "terrorists", Makaburi had argued, were the military personnel operating drones.

"How come the pilots of the drones are not labelled as terrorists? How come when we Muslims are being killed by the Americans using drones, by the British, by whoever, by the West, it's nothing, but when you have a single non-Muslim killed by a Muslim, it's terrorism?"

AFP 

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Britain to ban khat effective 26 May 2014

London - Khat will be banned in UK on May 2014 after the parliament passed the proposed legislation on Monday the 31st of March 2014  with the vote of 16 MPs who voted YES  with only two against.

It is now expected that the ban will be announced officially in a meeting to be held at theHome Office on the 17th of April 2014. The proposed legislation indicates that the ban will come into effect on the 26th of May 2014 as shown in this draft legislation document.
Khat has destroyed the lives of many Somalis in UK . In addition to mental and dental health problems, it is the major cause of family break-downs among the Somali community. Visit No 15 Mafresh at Southall next to the train station. It is open 24 hours a day , seven days a week. Addicts sleep there in shifts. Some even use cars parked in-front of the Mafresh as their sleeping places.
After the ban the addicts will be given better opportunities in life with rehabilitation and treatment . Khat business owners will be supported by the government to  change the Mafreshes into cafe’ shops or other legal businesses.

Khat users will be given enough information in advance about the consequences of selling or importing Khat whence it is banned. The metropolitan police has recently circulated fliers showing that those caught with Khat for personal use could face upto 2 years in  jail while importers could end-up in 15 years sentence.

Britain is an island with effective border control and has Scotland Yard to police the country. It will therefore, be very difficult to smuggle Khat into Britain , like the other expensive drugs which are mostly used by the rich ,  because of its low value. The coming two months will be the last for chewable Khat in UK not mentioning powder (garaabo) or liquefied khat syrup currently used by some Yemenis.

On the other hand ,whence khat import through Heathrow airport is stopped , it is hoped that there will be no more khat trafficking to the Americas or Europe through the UK. Khat consumption will therefore, be minimal outside the Horn of Africa with the exception of Yemen which grows its own kind.

Man dreamt of being a 'silent assassin,' court hears

Mohamed Hersi, seen outside a Brampton, Ont., court in 2011,

said people who insult the Prophet Muhammad 'deserve ...

what's coming to them' in taped conversations played in court

on Tuesday. Hersi is in court facing terrorism-related charges.

Photograph by: Peter J. Thompson,

BY STEWART BELL

Mohamed Hersi was talking to an undercover police officer about the al-Qaida propaganda magazine Inspire when he hesitated, wondering whether he should go on, but the officer reassured him it was OK.

"Who am I going to tell?" the officer said.

The conversation, played for jurors on Tuesday at Hersi's trial on terrorismrelated charges, was one of the last the pair would have. Ten days later, Hersi was arrested at Toronto's Pearson airport as he attempted to leave Canada.

Since last week, the undercover officer who befriended him has been testifying that the 28-year-old Toronto security guard had intended to travel to Somalia to join the terrorist group al-Shabab, as one of his friends had already done.

The case marks the first time police have arrested a Canadian to prevent him from going abroad to allegedly join a terrorist group, and it has come to trial amid concerns about dozens of radicalized Canadian youths joining armed extremist factions in Syria. Al-Shabab is an affiliate of al-Qaida that has been fighting to impose its brutal version of Islamic law on Somalis. It claimed responsibility for last year's massacre at Nairobi's Westgate shopping mall, which left two Canadians dead.

In the dozens of recorded conversations played for jurors over the past week, Hersi was mostly cautious, speaking vaguely about "that place" and "that guy" rather than using specific names, but he occasionally let down his guard.

During his meetings with the undercover officer, who was pretending he also wanted to join al-Shabab, he began to discuss the writings of jihadist ideologues such as Anwar Awlaki and Omar Hammami, an American who lived in Toronto before joining al-Shabab and leading one of its factions.

Hersi appeared to see himself playing a similar role as Hammami.

"Me personally, trust me, I think I'd be better suited to a leadership position, but you never know what's going to happen," he said in one of the taped conversations.

He also discussed his desire to get in shape before leaving, mentioning an imprisoned Saudi "sheik" who had written about the need to be able to run 10 kilometres. He talked about Shooter, a film starring Mark Wahlberg as a former U.S. Marine sniper.

"I always picture as a type of, you know, like a silent assassin. You know what I mean?" he said in a taped conversation played Tuesday. "I don't know what I'm trying to say here. You gotta be quiet about everything, you know. But some of those people deserve to, you know, get what they, what's coming to them, you know. If you ever insult the prophet Allah, peace be upon him, you deserve a certain outcome, you know."

He then referred to a U.S. woman who had launched Everybody Draw Muhammad Day, a response to a threat to kill the creators of the animated television comedy South Park over an episode that depicted the Prophet Muhammad in a bear costume.

"You can't insult Him, ever," Hersi said, adding that insulting Muhammad was worse than insulting his mother because it was like insulting Islam itself. "Woman, man, child - doesn't matter. Take them down, right?" The excerpt was one of several that hinted at Hersi's alleged drift toward extremism in the months before he was arrested on March 29, 2011. It remains unclear how the Somali-Canadian, who was raised in Toronto, came to adopt such views.

Source: leaderpost.com

Today In History - 2nd of April

Wednesday April 2, 2014 the 91st day and 13th week of 2014, there 274 days and 41 weeks left in the year.  Highlights of today in world history...

Early Italian successes in East Africa, which included occupying parts of Sudan, Kenya, and British Somaliland, were soon reversed after British offensives, led by British Field Marshall Archibald Wavell, 

2005 Pope John Paul II Dies

On this day in 2005, John Paul II, history's most well-travelled pope and the first non-Italian to hold the position since the 16th century, died at his home in the Vatican. Six days later, two million people packed Vatican City for his funeral, said to be the biggest funeral in history.

John Paul II was born Karol Jozef Wojtyla in Wadowice, Poland, 35 miles southwest of Krakow, in 1920. After high school, the future pope enrolled at Krakow's Jagiellonian University, where he studied philosophy and literature and performed in a theatre group. During World War II, Nazis occupied Krakow and closed the university, forcing Wojtyla to seek work in a quarry and, later, a chemical factory. By 1941, his mother, father, and only brother had all died, leaving him the sole surviving member of his family.

Although Wojtyla had been involved in the church his whole life, it was not until 1942 that he began seminary training. When the war ended, he returned to school at Jagiellonian to study theology, becoming an ordained priest in 1946. He went on to complete two doctorates and became a professor of moral theology and social ethics. On July 4, 1958, at the age of 38, he was appointed auxiliary bishop of Krakow by Pope Pius XII. He later became the city s archbishop, where he spoke out for religious freedom while the church began the Second Vatican Council, which would revolutionize Catholicism. He was made a cardinal in 1967, taking on the challenges of living and working as a Catholic priest in communist Eastern Europe. Once asked if he feared retribution from communist leaders, he replied, "I m not afraid of them. They are afraid of me."

Wojtyla was quietly and slowly building a reputation as a powerful preacher and a man of both great intellect and charisma. Still, when Pope John Paul I died in 1978 after only a 34-day reign, few suspected Wojtyla would be chosen to replace him. But, after seven rounds of balloting, the Sacred College of Cardinals chose the 58-year-old, and he became the first-ever Slavic pope and the youngest to be chosen in 132 years.

A conservative pontiff, John Paul II s papacy was marked by his firm and unwavering opposition to communism and war, as well as abortion, contraception, capital punishment, and homosexual sex. He later came out against euthanasia, human cloning, and stem cell research. He traveled widely as pope, using the eight languages he spoke (Polish, Italian, French, German, English, Spanish, Portuguese, and Latin) and his well-known personal charm, to connect with the Catholic faithful, as well as many outside the fold.

On May 13, 1981, Pope John Paul II was shot in St. Peter s Square by a Turkish political extremist, Mehmet Ali Agca. After his release from the hospital, the pope famously visited his would-be assassin in prison, where he had begun serving a life sentence, and personally forgave him for his actions. The next year, another unsuccessful attempt was made on the pope s life, this time by a fanatical priest who opposed the reforms of Vatican II.

Although it was not confirmed by the Vatican until 2003, many believe Pope John Paul II began suffering from Parkinson s disease in the early 1990s. He began to develop slurred speech and had difficulty walking, though he continued to keep up a physically demanding travel schedule. In his final years, he was forced to delegate many of his official duties, but still found the strength to speak to the faithful from a window at the Vatican. In February 2005, the pope was hospitalized with complications from the flu. He died two months later.

Pope John Paul II is remembered for his successful efforts to end communism, as well as for building bridges with peoples of other faiths, and issuing the Catholic Church s first apology for its actions during World War II. He was succeeded by Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, who became Pope Benedict XVI. Benedict XVI began the process to beatify John Paul II in May 2005.

1941 "The Desert Fox" recaptures Libya

On this day in 1941, German Lieutenant General Erwin Rommel, "the Desert Fox," resumed his advance into Cyrenaica, modern-day Libya, signalling the beginning of what nine days later became the recapture of Libya by the Axis forces.

Early Italian successes in East Africa, which included occupying parts of Sudan, Kenya, and British Somaliland, were soon reversed after British offensives, led by British Field Marshall Archibald Wavell, resulted in heavy Italian casualties and forced the Italians to retreat into Libya. But Axis control of the area was salvaged by the appearance of Rommel and the Afrika Korps, sent to East Africa by the German High Command to bail their Italian ally out.

On the verge of capturing Tripoli, the Libyan capital, Britain's forces were suddenly depleted when British Prime Minister Winston Churchill transferred British troops to Greece. Seizing the opportunity of a weakened British force, Rommel struck quickly, despite orders to remain still for two months. With 50 tanks and two fresh Italian divisions, Rommel forced the British to begin a retreat into Egypt.

Operation Battleaxe, the counteroffensive by British Field Marshall Archibald Wavell, resulted in little more than the loss of large numbers of British tanks to German 88mm anti-tank guns, as well as Wavell's ultimately being transferred from North Africa to India.

Rommel, known for his trademark goggles, which he pilfered from a British general's command vehicle, may have had some help in defeating his British counterpart. He was known to carry with him a book called Generals and Generalship, written by Archibald Wavell.

Rommel was portrayed by James Mason in the 1953 film The Desert Rats and by Christopher Plummer in 1967's Night of the Generals. Wavell was portrayed by Patrick Magee in the 1981 TV movie Churchill and the Generals.





1982 Argentina invades Falklands

On April 2, 1982, Argentina invaded the Falklands Islands, a British colony since 1892 and British possession since 1833. Argentine amphibious forces rapidly overcame the small garrison of British marines at the town of Stanley on East Falkland and the next day seized the dependent territories of South Georgia and the South Sandwich group. The 1,800 Falkland Islanders, mostly English-speaking sheep farmers, awaited a British response.

The Falkland Islands, located about 300 miles off the southern tip of Argentina, had long been claimed by the British. British navigator John Davis may have sighted the islands in 1592, and in 1690 British Navy Captain John Strong made the first recorded landing on the islands. He named them after Viscount Falkland, who was the First Lord of the Admiralty at the time. In 1764, French navigator Louis-Antoine de Bougainville founded the islands' first human settlement, on East Falkland, which was taken over by the Spanish in 1767. In 1765, the British settled West Falkland but left in 1774 for economic reasons. Spain abandoned its settlement in 1811.

In 1816 Argentina declared its independence from Spain and in 1820 proclaimed its sovereignty over the Falklands. The Argentines built a fort on East Falkland, but in 1832 it was destroyed by the USS Lexington in retaliation for the seizure of U.S. seal ships in the area. In 1833, a British force expelled the remaining Argentine officials and began a military occupation. In 1841, a British lieutenant governor was appointed, and by the 1880s a British community of some 1,800 people on the islands was self-supporting. In 1892, the wind-blown Falkland Islands were collectively granted colonial status.

For the next 90 years, life on the Falklands remained much unchanged, despite persistent diplomatic efforts by Argentina to regain control of the islands. In 1981, the Falkland Islanders voted in a referendum to remain British, and it seemed unlikely that the Falklands would ever revert to Argentine rule. Meanwhile, in Argentina, the military junta led by Lieutenant General Leopoldo Galtieri was suffering criticism for its oppressive rule and economic management, and planned the Falklands invasion as a means of promoting patriotic feeling and propping up its regime.

In March 1982, Argentine salvage workers occupied South Georgia Island, and a full-scale invasion of the Falklands began on April 2. Under orders from their commanders, the Argentine troops inflicted no British casualties, despite suffering losses to their own units. Nevertheless, Britain was outraged, and Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher assembled a naval task force of 30 warships to retake the islands. As Britain is 8,000 miles from the Falklands, it took several weeks for the British warships to arrive. On April 25, South Georgia Island was retaken, and after several intensive naval battles fought around the Falklands, British troops landed on East Falkland on May 21. After several weeks of fighting, the large Argentine garrison at Stanley surrendered on June 14, effectively ending the conflict.

Britain lost five ships and 256 lives in the fight to regain the Falklands, and Argentina lost its only cruiser and 750 lives. Humiliated in the Falklands War, the Argentine military was swept from power in 1983, and civilian rule was restored. In Britain, Margaret Thatcher's popularity soared after the conflict, and her Conservative Party won a landslide victory in 1983 parliamentary elections.

Somaliland Schooled Puts Global Perspective Into Practice

 

It's difficult to have high expectations when you grow up in Somaliland," —DEQA ABDIRAHMAN ADEN '14

By Cheryl Bardoe

 This fall, Deqa Abdirahman Aden '14 honed her list of possible colleges and reflected on the dream she once thought impossible. "It's difficult to have high expectations when you grow up in Somaliland," she says of her home, an autonomous breakaway region in northern Somalia. "When I came here to Worcester Academy ... that is when I started having hopes for my life."

Deqa enrolled at WA during her junior year, her studies here made possible by a $50,000 annual gift from Lori and Harry Emmons '60, specifically to bring students to the academy from Africa. More recently, the generosity and intention of the Emmonses was formalized as an Endowed Scholarship through a $1 million gift to the academy's ongoing capital campaign. Deqa's success underscores the investment of WA alumni and highlights how the concept of global impact is interwoven into the academy's past, present, and future.

SCHOOLED in SOMALILAND

Somalia is struggling to recover from two decades of civil war, overlapped with recurring drought. Trauma from the war affected Deqa's father so much that he could not care for his family, leaving her mother with sole responsibility for three children. Surrounded by ongoing conflict and struggling to survive, Deqa's mother still made sure that her children attended the best public schools in the city of Hargeysa.

From first through eighth grades, Deqa sat in classes of 60 students, with boys on one side of the room and girls on the other. Teachers had little time for class discussion, and particularly did not appreciate questions from girls, whom no one expected to attend school beyond eighth grade. Nonetheless, Deqa soaked up all the knowledge she could. "If education was like food in a bowl," she says, "then my siblings and I ate the most."

At the end of eighth grade, Deqa took the exam that all Somaliland students take at that age level. "I thought my hard work would be recognized," she says, "but a lot of people cheated. If your father is famous, or if you are from a particular clan, then you will get a good score."

While Deqa despaired, her mother encouraged her to take one more test. This time, Deqa's efforts were rewarded as she earned the highest score of any girl in the country. She was accepted to the Abaarso School of Science and Technology, "Abaarso Tech," a boarding school with a unique mission.

NEW SCHOOL brings NEW OPPORTUNITIES

Founding Abaarso Tech was not on Jonathan Starr's radar when he graduated from WA in '94. After college Mr. Starr began his career with a meteoric rise in the financial world. By age 27, he had founded Flagg Street Capital, a private investment firm with more than $100 million in assets. By age 30, he was becoming burned out. "I was up at 3 a.m.," he says, "wondering what would happen in markets on the other side of the world, or if my predictions on the telecommunications industry would be accurate. I wanted to think about something else."

In 2008, Mr. Starr traveled to Somalia with an uncle who had grown up there. He was impressed both by the depth of devastation that had occurred and by people's enduring efforts to rebuild. The country's education system symbolizes its struggles: The United Nations estimates that four out of ten children in Somalia attend school. Within a year, Mr. Starr had closed his investment firm in Cambridge, MA, and opened a boarding school in the desert 17 miles west of Hargeysa. "I thought that I may never again in my life see an opportunity to contribute in such a significant way," he says.

About two dozen teachers staff Abaarso Tech, teaching an English-based curriculum to 165 students. Only the best students from throughout Somalia are invited to attend, yet most arrive as ninth graders with what elsewhere in the world would be considered a first-grade reading level. "Our students gain three reading levels each year," Mr. Starr explains, "so that by graduation they are prepared to seek world- class educational opportunities."

Building and operating the school have not been easy. Abaarso Tech has strong support from government and religious leaders, who have inspected and approved it for adhering stringently to local cultural customs. Yet it has also received threats, and the campus is surrounded by a nine-foot security fence and armed guards.

An equivalent obstacle is getting the rest of the world to take a chance on Abaarso Tech students. Most schools abroad don't expect Somali students to have the academic foundation to succeed at their institutions. Mr. Starr, however, is just as obsessive about this work as he once was in the financial industry. "I'm still awake at 3 a.m.," he says, "but now I'm thinking about how we will position kids to get into college."

Deqa with Starr mentor and founder of Abaarso Tech

Mr. Starr credits WA with making the breakthrough for his students.

THE ROAD to WORCESTER ACADEMY

A previous recipient of the Emmonses' generosity, Mubarik Mohamed Mohamoud '13 arrived at WA in 2011, first for the summer program and then for the full academic year. Mr. Starr believes that Mubarik was the first student from Somalia to be accepted into any U.S. boarding school in decades.

Mubarik grew up in the impoverished Somali region of Ethiopia. The vast majority of people in this state are ethnic Somalis, including many nomads and about 200,000 refugees who live in United Nations camps. Mubarik's family lived in a remote area with no schools; at around age 10, he ran away to seek an education. His family brought him home several times, but Mubarik was persistent. He lived on the streets of Hargeysa, attending school and eventually securing a place at Abaarso Tech through the entry exam. When Mubarik won the first opportunity for an Abaarso Tech student to study abroad, his friends hoisted him on their shoulders to celebrate.

"Being accepted at Worcester Academy changed my life," Mubarik says. "I did not know if I would succeed at a big school in America, and other schools did not want to take kids from Somalia. Worcester Academy accepted me, and I did succeed."

Today, Mubarik is a freshman at MIT, considering a degree in either electrical engineering or computer science. "When I graduate, my goal is to go back and do what I can to create a better environment in my home." Mubarik understands, however, that he is already improving opportunities for young Somalis. "It is important that we can be accepted at schools in the U.S.," he says. "This tells the world that our students can do well too."

Since Mubarik's achievement at WA, 19 other Abaarso Tech students have been accepted to study at other boarding schools and prestigious colleges such as Oberlin, Trinity College, and Georgetown University. Mr. Starr estimates that his students have secured more than $3 million in scholarships to further their educations abroad.

THINKING GLOBALLY BEGINS at HOME

Assistant Head of School/Director of Upper School Barbara Ahalt says that WA was confident in accepting Mubarik, and later Deqa, because Mr. Starr was an alumnus who knew firsthand about the academy's academic rigor. "We trusted Jonathan to send us students with the tools to be successful," she says. "He is passionate about what he's doing, and we understand what he is trying to do.

"It's important to expose students to what the world looks and feels like," Ms. Ahalt continues. "We're fortunate to be a boarding school where we can support hosting students from around the world."

WA currently has students from 29 different countries. Ms. Ahalt describes classes in which students from Africa, New Zealand, Western Europe, Kazakhstan, and Mainland China exchange ideas alongside students from the United States. "It's a remarkable achievement to break down cultural barriers and think about the world from a global perspective. This connects kids in a real, personal way."

Even with the Abaarso Tech training, adjusting to WA can be a challenge. Enrolled in classes such as AP Chemistry and AP Calculus, Deqa recalls struggling for her first trimester, but then earning all A's in her second trimester. The warmth of the community, she says, makes WA a welcoming environment to try new things, like choir and public speaking. In fact, she recently won the Dexter Prize Speaking Contest for a speech about humanity and what things drive people apart from each other. "I was speaking to the audience here," Deqa says, "and I was thinking about my fellow Somalis at home."

Scheduled to graduate from WA in 2014, Deqa no longer has low expectations for her life. "Here, they don't care about your clan or your background. They care about what you can do. I feel like I can do anything."

Source: Somalilandsu

Radical Muslim Leader Shot Dead in Kenya

By TOM ODULA and JASON STRAZIUSO Associated Press

A radical Islamic leader who had been sanctioned by the United States and the United Nations for supporting an al-Qaida-linked Somali militant group was assassinated late Tuesday, his lawyer and officials said.

The killing by unknown gunmen came as the Kenyan government announced it had begun an operation to stop a wave of attacks in the country as authorities arrested more than 650 people in Nairobi following a bomb attack Monday.

Attorney Mbugua Mureithi said Abubakar Shariff Ahmed was shot dead along with another unidentified man near the Shimo la Tewa prison in the coastal town of Mombasa. The killings threaten to spark retaliatory violence.

Ahmed's death is the latest to hit the Masjid Shuhadaa Mosque, which officials call an incubator of terrorism. Sheik Aboud Rogo Mohammed — a friend of Ahmed's — was assassinated in August 2012. A year later another mosque leader was killed. There have been no arrests in either case.

Mohammed had been sanctioned by the U.S. and U.N. for allegedly supporting al-Shabab, which has vowed to carry out terrorist attacks on Kenyan soil to avenge Kenya's sending of troops to Somalia.

Following the first two killings, Ahmed, also known as Makaburi, told The Associated Press in October that he believed he was marked for death.

"I'm living on borrowed time. The same guy who ordered Aboud Rogo's death is going to order mine," Ahmed said.

Ahmed had clear links with al-Shabab, said Matt Bryden, the former head of the United Nations Monitoring Group on Somalia and Eritrea and a top expert on al-Shabab. Bryden said Ahmed's death may cause the militant group to plan retaliatory attacks against Kenya.

Ahmed had often said he was in danger of being killed by security agents, Mureithi said. He said Ahmed started making those claims soon after he and Mohammed were nearly abducted outside a court building in Nairobi in July 2012.

Mureithi said Ahmed's last interview with a local TV station in which he appeared to justify the killings of civilians during the September terrorist attack on an up-scale mall in Nairobi may have contributed to his death.

Riots broke out in Mombasa after Mohammed was killed in August 2012 and after Sheik Ibrahim Ismael was killed in October. Ahmed was charged with inciting violence.

Kenya is still on edge following the September attack on Nairobi's Westgate Mall that killed at least 67 people. Since then al-Shabab sympathizers have been blamed for an explosion at Nairobi's main airport, a grenade attack on tourists on Kenya's coast, a blast on a bus in Nairobi, and three blasts Monday night in the capital that killed six people.

Authorities said Tuesday they had arrested 657 people following the latest attack. Kenya frequently makes mass arrests after attacks only to release nearly all of those arrested.

Last month, police on the coast discovered a car bomb packed with explosives that a police official has said was meant to target a shopping mall. Later in the month gunmen killed six people in a church outside Mombasa.

A senior Kenyan security official said that security agencies believe a large scale attack is imminent. He said because police foiled the planned car bomb in Mombasa, terrorists are more determined to carry out another.

Bryan N. Kahumbura, a Horn of Africa analyst with the International Crisis group, said a mix of issues is fueling the escalation of attacks.

The disappearances and executions of Muslim youth suspected of having links to terror are angering the Kenyan Muslim community, Kahumbura said. Many Muslims feel they are being profiled by police, he said