Somalia

Mental illness 'rampant' in Somalia

With all the violence and chaos in Somalia, anyone could go crazy. The near daily fighting has taken its toll on the mental health of its people.

The evidence of this can be found almost everywhere, as most of Somalia’s mentally ill are either simply chained to beds or left to roam the streets, leaving them with permanent trauma and physical injuries.

Somalia has one of the world’s highest rates of mental-health disorders. An estimated one-third of its eight million people are affected by some kind of mental illness, yet there are only three trained psychiatrists in the entire country to care for them, according to the World Health Organisation.

 “Degrading and dangerous cultural practices such as being restrained with chains are not only widespread but also socially and medically accepted,” the WHO said in a recent study of Somalia’s mental health care.

Back to Dadaab: is there no new story?

It always makes sense to revisit a story, as the adage goes, to deepen one’s sense of time and space and to forcefully interrogate events from a first encounter or journey in a bid to separate one-off incidents from purposeful patterns. But in this brave new world of mass production and consumption journalism -  where stories often have the lifespan of a tweet - revisiting a story is often a mere exercise in luxury.

So naturally, when the opportunity arose to revisit Dadaab, the largest refugee camp in the world, albeit very briefly, a month-and-a-half after we had first explored the humanitarian crisis unfolding there as the worst drought in six decades hit the Horn of Africa, it seemed like one worth embracing.

Leaving Dadaab

A well known and respected journalist emailed me today complimenting our Al Jazeera team's work in covering the refugee and drought crisis in North Eastern Kenya and Somalia over the past week, describing it as "contextualised and moving, without being drippy or cliched".

Sometimes the pictures do just speak for themselves, but in news, behind the scenes, there are so many stories which often can't make it to the television screen.

In the Somali border town of Dobley, our team was faced with a dilemma. We were confronted with scores of hungry people, many of whom were very weak and frail, with absolutely no one to help them.

As journalists you, of course, have a duty to tell the story, but at the same time, you just cannot turn your back on humanity. Our time in the town was severely limited due to security concerns, and so we had to film as much as possible in the little time that we had.

An important week for Kosovo

What do Mauritania, Swaziland, Somalia, Djibouti and Vanuatu have in common? Not a lot, but they are they are the only countries that have recognised Kosovo as a sovereign state this year.

Two and a half years have passed since Kosovo unilaterally declared independence from Serbia, and the initial flood of recognitions has slowed to a trickle. Kosovo is in limbo; supported by the United States and the EU heavyweights, but with it’s path to UN membership firmly barred by Russia and China on the Security Council, and with a clear majority of countries having decided, for now, not to offer it recognition.

This is the background to an important ruling this Thursday, July 22 by the International Court of Justice in the Hague.  In response to a request by Serbia, it will announce an advisory opinion on the legality of Kosovo’s declaration of independence.