Somalia Shuts Two Radio Stations

Closures Are Part of a Wider Crackdown on Journalists

NAIROBI, Nov. 13-- The Somali government shut down two private radio stations in Mogadishu on Tuesday, the latest episode in a widespread crackdown on Somali journalists working in one of the most hostile environments in the world.

The closures came a day after the government closed one of the Somali capital's most prominent radio stations, Shabelle, for the eighth time this year.

All three stations were still silent Tuesday night.

"They didn't give any reason why," said a reporter for Simba Radio, who did not want to give his name. "They didn't have warrants from the government. They just said, 'Close the station.' The situation is deteriorating, and it's going to worsen still." The other station shut down Tuesday was Radio Banadir.

In the past, the Somali government has accused various radio stations in Mogadishu of airing reports that aid the cause of insurgents who have been battling Somali government troops and their Ethiopian backers for nearly a year.

But Somali journalists say that they are independent and that their reports have angered all sides in the conflict. At least seven Somali journalists have been killed in apparent targeted assassinations this year.

Tuesday's closures came after the stations aired the story of a young girl who said her entire family of eight, including both her parents, died when a tank shell struck her house during urban fighting last weekend. At least 60 people were killed in that fighting.

The violence prompted thousands more people to flee the oceanside capital, adding to an already severe humanitarian crisis.

In late December, when Ethiopian troops installed a U.S.-backed transitional government, there were an estimated 400,000 people displaced in Somalia from previous years of fighting, according to U.N. figures.

In the country of 9 million, there are now an estimated 850,000 people displaced; 350,000 of those have abandoned Mogadishu for areas to the south that are having one of the worst harvests in years.

Eric Laroche, the U.N.'s humanitarian coordinator for Somalia, said the child malnutrition rates in the country are higher than in Sudan's western Darfur region, which has drawn the largest humanitarian relief effort in the world.

By contrast, he said, the humanitarian response in Somalia "is definitely not enough."

And for relief workers who are there, he said, reaching the people who need food, water and medical attention is often impossible. Trucks are constantly stopped by freelancing soldiers and militia fighters who have set up checkpoints and charge anywhere from $50 to $400 for passage, Laroche said.

"I was in Congo, I was in Chad, I was in Afghanistan," he said. "But never, ever have I seen a crisis where there is absolutely no protection for civilians. In Somalia, there's nothing."

Special correspondent Mohamed Ibrahim in Mogadishu contributed to this report.