Hundreds demonstrate in Mogadishu over UN Monitoring Reports in Somalia

Hundreds of Mogadishu residents Saturday held demonstration against what they termed a threat to the country by the UN Monitoring Group for Eritrea and Somalia, UNMGES annual reports.

The demonstration organised by elders, business community and clerics comes amid allegations that an upcoming UNMGES report indicts business owners and politicians over a string of allegations.

Speaking during the event, one of the organisers Muhidin Hassan Ahmed said subsequent UNMGES reports have been used as a conduit to peddle unfounded allegations and to advance character assassinations.

“Such outlandish allegations and mischaracterization of public officials remain the modus operandi of SEMG leaderships both past and present”, Muhidin Hassan Ahmed, a traditional elder said.

In a statement Saturday, the lobby group which brought together clerics, civil society and business people said the UNMGES has ‘focused consistently on subverting the progress of the Somali people by mischaracterizing and distorting the facts on the ground in Somalia’.

In meeting attended by about 500 representatives last week, the lobby cast aspersions on the intent and purpose of UNMGES noting that it used ‘illegal and otherwise highly questionable methods in working to achieve its objectives, which include the use of threats and extortion to obtain information and selective leaking of false and defamatory information to discredit key individuals and institutions of government and private enterprises’.

Daahir Hassan, a business man and co-organiser of the demonstration said ‘it was time Somali government drew the line and confronts the dangers posed by the UNMGES to the country and its citizens’.

The UNMGES was mandated by the UN Security Council to monitor the arms embargo imposed on Somalia and Eritrea.