Tag Archives: Somalia

Bombs kill at least seven in Mogadishu

A general view shows the scene after a suicide car bomb explosion at the gate of Naso Hablod Two Hotel in Hamarweyne district of Mogadishu, Somalia October 28, 2017. REUTERS/Feisal Omar

By Abdi Sheikh

MOGADISHU (Reuters) – Two car bombs killed at least 17 people in Somalia’s capital Mogadishu on Saturday, police said, and Islamist group al Shabaab claimed responsibility.

A suicide car bomb was rammed into a hotel, Nasahablod Two, about 600 meters from the presidential palace, and then armed militants stormed the building, police said.

A few minutes later a car bomb exploded near the former parliament house nearby.

Ali Nur, a police officer, told Reuters 17 people, mostly policemen, had died in the blasts.

“Security forces have entered a small portion of the hotel building … the exchange of gunfire is hellish,” he said.

The police personnel who died had been stationed close to hotel’s gate. The dead also included a former lawmaker, he said.

Fighting continued to rage inside the hotel and police said the death toll was likely to rise.

Abdikadir Abdirahman, director of Amin ambulances, told Reuters the emergency service had carried 17 people injured from the hotel blast.

A huge cloud of smoke rose over the scene and a Reuters witness saw over a dozen wrecked cars and bloodstains in front of the hotel. Sporadic gunfire could be heard in the vicinity.

Islamist group al Shabaab, responsible for scores of such attacks in the country’s long civil war, said it carried out Saturday’s bombings.

“We targeted ministers and security officials who were inside the hotel. We are fighting inside,” Abdiasis Abu Musab, the group’s military operations spokesman, told Reuters.

He said the hotel belonged to Somalia’s internal security minister, Mohamed Abukar Islow.

Al Shabaab is fighting to topple Somalia’s internationally-backed government and impose its strict interpretation of Islam’s sharia law.

Bombs in Mogadishu two weeks ago killed at least 358 people, the worst such attacks in the country’s history, igniting nationwide outrage. Al Shabaab was widely suspected, but has not claimed responsibility.

(Additional reporting by Feisal Omar; writing by Elias Biryabarema; editing by Andrew Roche)

Somalis defy police to protest against massive truck bombings

Protesters chant slogans while demonstrating against last weekend's explosion in KM4 street in the Hodan district in Mogadishu, Somalia October 18, 2017. REUTERS/Feisal Omar

By Abdi Sheikh

MOGADISHU (Reuters) – Thousands of Somalis demonstrated on Wednesday against those behind bombings that killed more than 300 people at the weekend, defying police who opened fire to keep them away from where their loved-ones perished.

The twin blasts at busy junctions in the heart of Mogadishu on Saturday injured another more than 400 in what were the country’s deadliest truck bombings.

Police initially opened fire to prevent people from accessing the rubble-strewn scene of the attack, injuring at least two people, the emergency response service said.

But eventually they had to let thousands of the demonstrators gather there after they were overwhelmed by the numbers. Residents said they had never seen such a big protest in the city.

“We are demonstrating against the terrorists that massacred our people. We entered the road by force,” said Halima Abdullahi, a mother who lost six of her relatives in the attacks.

The Islamist militant group al Shabaab, which began an insurgency in 2007, has not claimed responsibility, but the method and type of attack – a large truck bomb – is increasingly used by the al Qaeda-linked organization.

Mohamed Ali, a police captain at the scene, said it was fine for the demonstrators to access the scene to express their grief.

“For some who could not see their relatives alive or dead, the only chance they have is to at least see the spot where their beloved were killed,” he told Reuters.

The government buried at least 160 of those who were killed because they could not be identified after the blast.

Masked security officers kept an eye on the protest on foot and on motorbikes. Some of the protesters sat on police trucks waving sticks and chanting: “We do not want al Shabaab”.

The militants were driven out of Mogadishu in 2011 and have been steadily losing territory.

But they retain the capacity to mount large bomb attacks. Over the past three years, the number of civilians killed by insurgent bombings has steadily climbed as al Shabaab increases the size of its bombs.

In the central town of Dusamareb, residents also marched for several hours to protest against the bombings in Mogadishu and clerics called for the war against the militants to be stepped up.

Abdikadir Abdirahman, the director of Aamin Ambulances, said one pregnant demonstrator was evacuated from the Mogadishu protest after she developed complications.

“The other two were also demonstrating. They were injured by bullets which the police fired to disperse the demonstrators who wanted to enter the blast scene by force,” he said.

(Writing by Duncan Miriri; Editing by Alison Williams)

Somalia calls for blood donations after bombing, Turkey sends doctors

Civilians walk at the scene of an explosion in KM4 street in the Hodan district of Mogadishu. REUTERS/Feisal Omar

By Maggie Fick

NAIROBI (Reuters) – Somalia is in desperate need for donated blood to treat survivors of a truck bombing in the capital Mogadishu on Saturday that killed more than 300 people and injured at least 400 others, a minister said.

The bombing was one of the worst such attacks in Somalia. Officials said it bore the hallmarks of the al Qaeda-linked al Shabaab group, but they have not claimed responsibility.

Information Minister Abdirahman Omar Osman said Somalia does not have a blood bank and that the limitations of its health care system was impeding the medical response. Countries including Turkey and Qatar are providing medical assistance.

“We are requesting blood, we are requesting assistance for verifying the dead in order for their relatives to know,” Osman told Reuters by phone from Mogadishu.

Somalia has been mired in conflict since 1991, when clan warlords overthrew a dictator then turned on each other. One of the poorest countries in Africa, it faces severe food insecurity and relies on foreign donors to support its institutions and basic services.

Osman said the bodies of more than 100 people buried on Monday “were blown beyond recognition”, and that he hoped other bodies could still be identified.

Turkish doctors — mainly surgeons and specialists in spine injuries — arrived along with Turkey’s health minister on Monday.

“They are treating people in hospitals in Mogadishu,” the minister said.

Turkey evacuated 35 critically wounded Somalis to Ankara by plane on Monday, the country’s deputy prime minister Recep Akdag told reporters upon returning from Somalia. An increasingly close ally of Somalia, Turkey opened a $50 million military base in the capital last month.

Medicine from neighboring nations Djibouti and Kenya arrived by plane on Tuesday and “air ambulance” was en route from the Gulf state of Qatar, the minister said.

Qatar would be evacuating 25 more injured people to a hospital in Sudan.

(Reporting by Maggie Fick; Additional reporting by Tuvan Gumrukcu in Ankara; Editing by Raissa Kasolowsky)

Death toll from Somalia bomb attacks tops 300

A general view shows the scene of an explosion in KM4 street in the Hodan district of Mogadishu, Somalia October 14, 2017.

By Abdi Sheikh

MOGADISHU (Reuters) – More than 300 people died after twin bomb explosions in Mogadishu, an official said on Monday, as locals packed hospitals in search of friends and relatives caught up in Somalia’s deadliest attack in a decade.

The death toll has steadily risen since Saturday, when the blasts – for which no organization had claimed responsibility by Monday morning – struck at two busy junctions in the heart of the city.

“We have confirmed 300 people died in the blast. The death toll will still be higher because some people are still missing,” Abdikadir Abdirahman, the director of the city’s ambulance service, told Reuters on Monday.

Aden Nur, a doctor at the city’s Madina hospital, said they had recorded 258 deaths while Ahmed Ali, a nurse at the nearby Osman Fiqi hospital, told Reuters five bodies had been sent there.

Nur said 160 of the bodies could not be recognized. “(They)were buried by the government yesterday. The others were buried by their relatives. Over a hundred injured were also brought here,” he told Reuters at the hospital.

Some of the injured were being evacuated by air to Turkey for treatment, officials said.

Locals visiting their injured relatives or collecting their bodies filled every available space in Madina hospital.

“My last time to speak with my brother was some minutes before the blast occurred. By then he told me, he was on the way to meet and was passing at K5,” Halima Nur, a local mother, told Reuters, referring to one of the junctions that was struck.

“I am afraid he was among the unrecognized charred bodies that were buried yesterday. I have no hope of getting him alive or dead. But I cannot go home.”

Somali government forces and civilians gather at the scene of an explosion in KM4 street in the Hodan district of Mogadishu, Somalia October 15,

Somali government forces and civilians gather at the scene of an explosion in KM4 street in the Hodan district of Mogadishu, Somalia October 15, 2017. REUTERS/Feisal Omar

DEADLIEST SINCE INSURGENCY BEGAN

Saturday bomb attacks were the deadliest since Islamist militant group al Shabaab began an insurgency in 2007.

Neither it nor any other group had claimed responsibility, but al Shabaab, which is allied to al Qaeda, stages regular attacks in the capital and other parts of the country.

The group is waging an insurgency against Somalia’s U.N.-backed government and its African Union allies in a bid to impose its own strict interpretation of Islam.

The militants were driven out of Mogadishu in 2011 and have been steadily losing territory since then to the combined forces of AU peacekeepers and Somali security forces.

But Al Shabaab retains the capacity to mount large, complex bomb attacks. Over the past three years, the number of civilians killed by insurgent bombings has steadily climbed as al Shabaab increases the size of its bombs.

Some of those seriously injured in Saturday’s bombing were moved by ambulance to the airport on Monday morning to be flown to Turkey for further treatment, Nur added.

Workers unloaded boxes of medicine and other medical supplies from a Turkish military plane parked on the tarmac, while Turkish medical teams attended to the cases of injuries moved from the hospital for evacuation.

 

 

 

(Writing by Duncan Miriri; editing by John Stonestreet)

 

Car bombs kill at least 22 in Somalia’s capital Mogadishu: police

Civilians evacuate from the scene of an explosion in KM4 street in the Hodan district of Mogadishu, Somalia October 14, 2017. REUTERS/Feisal Omar TPX IMAGES OF THE DAY

By Abdi Sheikh

MOGADISHU (Reuters) – Two car bombs in separate parts of Somalia’s capital Mogadishu killed at least 22 people on Saturday and injured several others, police said.

The first explosion – in the city’s K5 Junction area which is lined with government offices, hotels, and restaurants – destroyed several buildings and set dozens of vehicles on fire.

“We know that at least 20 civilians are dead while dozens of others are wounded,” said Abdullahi Nur, a police officer who was in the area.

“The death toll will surely rise. We are still busy transporting casualties,” he said, adding that there were bodies under the rubble.

About two hours later, a second blast took place in the city’s Madina district.

“It was a car bomb. Two civilians were killed, ” Siyad Farah, a police major, told Reuters, adding that a suspect had been caught on suspicion of planting explosives.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility, although the Islamist al Shabaab group has carried out regular attacks

The al Qaeda-allied group is waging an insurgency to topple the weak U.N.-backed government and its African Union allies and impose its own strict interpretation of Islam.

They frequently launch gun, grenade and bomb attacks in Mogadishu and other regions controlled by the federal government, though in recent years the militants have lost most territory under their control to African Union peacekeepers and government troops.

(Writing by Aaron Maasho; Editing by Richard Balmforth)

Trump slaps travel restrictions on North Korea, Venezuela in sweeping new ban

International passengers wait for their rides outside the international arrivals exit at Washington Dulles International Airport in Dulles, Virginia, U.S. September 24, 2017.

By Jeff Mason and Phil Stewart

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Donald Trump on Sunday slapped new travel restrictions on citizens from North Korea, Venezuela and Chad, expanding to eight the list of countries covered by his original travel bans that have been derided by critics and challenged in court.

Iran, Libya, Syria, Yemen and Somalia were left on the list of affected countries in a new proclamation issued by the president. Restrictions on citizens from Sudan were lifted.

The measures help fulfill a campaign promise Trump made to tighten U.S. immigration procedures and align with his “America First” foreign policy vision. Unlike the president’s original bans, which had time limits, this one is open-ended.

“Making America Safe is my number one priority. We will not admit those into our country we cannot safely vet,” the president said in a tweet shortly after the proclamation was released.

Iraqi citizens will not be subject to travel prohibitions but will face enhanced scrutiny or vetting.

The current ban, enacted in March, was set to expire on Sunday evening. The new restrictions are slated to take effect on Oct. 18 and resulted from a review after Trump’s original travel bans sparked international outrage and legal challenges.

The addition of North Korea and Venezuela broadens the restrictions from the original, mostly Muslim-majority list.

An administration official, briefing reporters on a conference call, acknowledged that the number of North Koreans now traveling to the United States was very low.

Rights group Amnesty International USA condemned the measures.

“Just because the original ban was especially outrageous does not mean we should stand for yet another version of government-sanctioned discrimination,” it said in a statement.

“It is senseless and cruel to ban whole nationalities of people who are often fleeing the very same violence that the U.S. government wishes to keep out. This must not be normalized.”

The American Civil Liberties Union said in a statement the addition of North Korea and Venezuela “doesn’t obfuscate the real fact that the administration’s order is still a Muslim ban.”

The White House portrayed the restrictions as consequences for countries that did not meet new requirements for vetting of immigrants and issuing of visas. Those requirements were shared in July with foreign governments, which had 50 days to make improvements if needed, the White House said.

A number of countries made improvements by enhancing the security of travel documents or the reporting of passports that were lost or stolen. Others did not, sparking the restrictions.

The announcement came as the U.S. Supreme Court prepares to hear oral arguments on Oct. 10 over the legality of Trump’s previous travel ban, including whether it discriminated against Muslims.

 

NORTH KOREA, VENEZUELA ADDED

Trump has threatened to “destroy” North Korea if it attacks the United States or its allies. Pyongyang earlier this month conducted its most powerful nuclear bomb test. The president has also directed harsh criticism at Venezuela, once hinting at

a potential military option to deal with Caracas.

But the officials described the addition of the two countries to Trump’s travel restrictions as the result of a purely objective review.

In the case of North Korea, where the suspension was sweeping and applied to both immigrants and non-immigrants, officials said it was hard for the United States to validate the identity of someone coming from North Korea or to find out if that person was a threat.

“North Korea, quite bluntly, does not cooperate whatsoever,” one official said.

The restrictions on Venezuela focused on Socialist government officials that the Trump administration blamed for the country’s slide into economic disarray, including officials from the Bolivarian National Intelligence Service and their immediate families.

Trump received a set of policy recommendations on Friday from acting Secretary of Homeland Security Elaine Duke and was briefed on the matter by other administration officials, including Attorney General Jeff Sessions and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, a White House aide said.

The rollout on Sunday was decidedly more organized than Trump’s first stab at a travel ban, which was unveiled with little warning and sparked protests at airports worldwide.

Earlier on Sunday, Trump told reporters about the ban: “The tougher, the better.”

Rather than a total ban on entry to the United States, the proposed restrictions differ by nation, based on cooperation with American security mandates, the threat the United States believes each country presents and other variables, officials said.

Somalis, for example, are barred from entering the United States as immigrants and subjected to greater screening for visits.

After the Sept. 15 bombing attack on a London train, Trump wrote on Twitter that the new ban “should be far larger, tougher and more specific – but stupidly, that would not be politically correct.”

The expiring ban blocked entry into the United States by people from the six countries for 90 days and locked out most aspiring refugees for 120 days to give Trump’s administration time to conduct a worldwide review of U.S. vetting procedures for foreign visitors.

Critics have accused the Republican president of discriminating against Muslims in violation of constitutional guarantees of religious liberty and equal protection under the law, breaking existing U.S. immigration law and stoking religious hatred.

Some federal courts blocked the ban, but the U.S. Supreme Court allowed it to take effect in June with some restrictions.

 

(Additional reporting by James Oliphant, Yeganeh Torbati, and Lawrence Hurley; Editing by Peter Cooney)

 

Trump to present vision for U.S. strategy in Afghanistan war

FILE PHOTO: U.S. Army soldiers from the 2nd Platoon, B battery 2-8 field artillery, fire a howitzer artillery piece at Seprwan Ghar forward fire base in Panjwai district, Kandahar province southern Afghanistan, June 12, 2011.

By Steve Holland and John Walcott

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – It will be President Donald Trump’s turn on Monday to address a problem that vexed his two predecessors when he details his strategy for the war in Afghanistan, America’s longest military conflict.

In a prime-time speech to the nation, Trump may announce a modest increase in U.S. troops, as recommended by his senior advisers.

Trump has long been skeptical of the U.S. approach in the region, where the Afghan war is in its 16th year.

He announced a strategic review soon after taking office in January and has privately questioned whether sending more troops was wise, U.S. officials said.

“We’re not winning,” he told advisers in a mid-July meeting, questioning whether Army General John Nicholson, the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, should be fired, an official said.

Trump, who on Sunday ended a two-week working vacation at his Bedminster, New Jersey, golf club, reached his decision on Afghanistan after lengthy talks with his top military and national security aides at Camp David, Maryland, on Friday.

A White House statement on Sunday said Trump would “provide an update on the path forward for America’s engagement in Afghanistan and South Asia.”

A senior administration official said the likeliest outcome was that Trump would agree to a modest increase in U.S. troops. Current U.S. troop numbers are about 8,400.

The United States invaded Afghanistan in October 2001 after the Sept. 11 attacks on New York and Washington, and overthrew the Islamist Taliban government. But U.S. forces have remained bogged down there through the presidencies of George W. Bush, Barack Obama and now Trump.

“I took over a mess, and we’re going to make it a lot less messy,” Trump said when asked about Afghanistan earlier this month.

 

TALIBAN THREAT

Defense Secretary Jim Mattis has argued that a U.S. military presence is needed to protect against the ongoing threat from Islamist militants.

Afghan security forces have struggled to prevent advances by Taliban insurgents. The war stymied the Obama administration, which committed an increase of tens of thousands of U.S. troops to reverse Taliban gains, then committed to a troop drawdown, which ultimately had to be halted.

Earlier this year, Trump gave Mattis the authority to set troop levels in Afghanistan, opening the door for future troop increases requested by Nicholson. The general, who leads U.S. and international forces in Afghanistan, said in February he needed “a few thousand” additional forces, some potentially drawn from U.S. allies.

U.S. military and intelligence officials are concerned that a Taliban victory would allow al Qaeda and Islamic State’s regional affiliate to establish bases in Afghanistan from which to plot attacks against the United States and its allies.

One reason the White House decision has taken so long, two officials who participated in the discussions said on Sunday, is that it was difficult to get Trump to accept the need for a broader regional strategy that included U.S. policy toward Pakistan before making a decision on whether to send additional forces to Afghanistan.

Both officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, declined to disclose Trump’s decisions on troop levels and Pakistan policy before he does.

The difficulty in reaching a decision was compounded, the two officials said, by the wide range of conflicting options Trump received.

White House national security adviser H.R. McMaster and other advisers favored accepting Nicholson’s request for some 4,000 additional U.S. forces.

But recently ousted White House strategic adviser Steve Bannon had argued for the withdrawal of all U.S. forces, saying that after 16 years, the war was still not winnable, U.S. officials said. Bannon, fired on Friday by Trump, was not at the Camp David meeting.

The officials said that another option examined was shrinking the U.S. force by some 3,000 troops and leaving a smaller counterterrorism and intelligence-gathering contingent to carry out special operations and direct drone strikes against the Taliban.

Proponents argued that option was less costly in lives and money and would add less to the damage already inflicted on U.S. special operations forces by the long-running battles in Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia and Syria.

 

 

(Additional reporting by Idrees Ali traveling with Mattis in Amman; Writing by James Oliphant; Editing Peter Cooney.)

 

Trump administration moves to make tougher U.S. visa vetting permanent

A sign warns of surveillance at the International Arrival area at Logan Airport in Boston.

By Yeganeh Torbati

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The Trump administration moved on Thursday to make permanent a new questionnaire that asks some U.S. visa applicants to provide their social media handles and detailed biographical and travel history, according to a public notice.

The questionnaire was rolled out in May as part of an effort to tighten vetting of would-be visitors to the United States, and asks for all prior passport numbers, five years’ worth of social media handles, email addresses and phone numbers and 15 years of biographical information including addresses, employment and travel history. (See: http://bit.ly/2v0qsR2)

A State Department official declined to provide data on how many times the form had been used or which nationalities had been asked to fill it out since May, only stating that it estimates 65,000 visa applicants per year “will present a threat profile” that warrants the extra screening.

President Donald Trump ran for office in 2016 pledging to crack down on illegal immigration for security reasons, and has called for “extreme vetting” of foreigners entering the United States. On Wednesday, he threw his support behind a bill that would cut legal immigration to the United States by 50 percent over 10 years.

The Office of Management and Budget, which must approve most new federal requests of information from the public, initially approved the form on an “emergency” basis, which allowed its use for six months rather than the usual three years.

The State Department published a notice in the Federal Register on Thursday seeking to use the form for the next three years. The public has 60 days to comment on the request.

The questions are meant to “more rigorously evaluate applicants for terrorism, national security-related, or other visa ineligibilities,” the notice said.

While the questions are voluntary, the form says failure to provide the information may delay or prevent the processing of a visa application.

Trump ordered a temporary travel ban in March on citizens of Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen. After months of legal wrangling, the Supreme Court in June allowed the travel ban to go forward with a limited scope.

The form does not target any particular nationality.

Seyed Ali Sepehr, who runs an immigration consultancy in California serving Iranian clients applying for U.S. visas, said that since late June, all of his clients who have been referred for extra security checks have also been asked to fill out the new form.

Kiyanoush Razaghi, an immigration attorney based in Maryland, said he knows of Iraqis, Libyans and Iranians who have been asked to fill out the form.

Immigration attorney Steve Pattison said one of his clients, who is not from one of the six travel ban countries, had been asked to fill out the new form when applying for a visitor visa, indicating that consular officers are using it broadly.

“It could be that everyone is missing another consequence of the use of the form – its deployment in a far wider sense to cover all sorts of individuals,” Pattison said.

 

(Reporting by Yeganeh Torbati; editing by Sue Horton and Grant McCool)

 

Stranded Yemenis, thousands of others stand to lose ‘golden ticket’ to U.S.

Yemeni Rafek Ahmed Mohammed Al-Sanani (R), 22, and Abdel Rahman Zaid, 26 look through documents as they speak with Reuters in Serdang, on the outskirts of Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia July 20, 2017.

By Riham Alkousaa and Yeganeh Torbati

NEW YORK/WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Yemen is urging the U.S. government to take in dozens of Yemenis who traveled to Malaysia in recent months expecting to immigrate to the United States, only to find themselves stranded by President Donald Trump’s temporary travel ban.

The ban, which was blocked by lower courts before being partially reinstated by the Supreme Court in June, temporarily bars citizens of Yemen and five other Muslim-majority countries with no “bona fide” connections to the United States from traveling there.

The Supreme Court ruling sharply limited the number of people affected by the ban. Largely unreported has been the fate of one group – thousands of citizens of the six countries who won a randomized U.S. government lottery last year that enabled them to apply for a so-called green card granting them permanent residence in the United States.

In a stroke of bad luck for the lottery winners, the 90-day travel ban will expire on Sept. 27, just three days before their eligibility for the green cards expires. Given the slow pace of the immigration process, the State Department will likely struggle to issue their visas in time.

A recent email from the U.S. government to lottery winners still awaiting their visas warned “it is plausible that your case will not be issuable” due to the travel ban.

The lottery attracts about 14 million applicants each year, many of whom view it as a chance at the “American Dream.” It serves as a potent symbol of U.S. openness abroad, despite the fact that the chance of success is miniscule – about 0.3 percent, or slightly fewer than 50,000, of lottery entrants actually got a green card in 2015.

The program helps to foster an image of America “as a country which welcomes immigrants and immigration from around the world, but also especially from Africa,” said Johnnie Carson, a former U.S. assistant secretary of state for African affairs during the Obama administration.

Some former diplomats worry the travel ban’s impact on the lottery could tarnish that image of inclusiveness.

“Taking this away from people who have won it is the cruelest possible thing this administration could do,” said Stephen Pattison, a former senior State Department consular official. “It makes us look petty and cruel as a society.”

Reuters spoke to dozens of lottery winners from Yemen, Iran and Syria, including about 20 who are still waiting for their visas to be issued. Many declined to be named so as not to risk their applications but provided emails and other documents to help confirm their accounts.

They described having spent thousands of dollars on the application process, and many said they had delayed having children, sold property and turned down lucrative job offers at home because they assumed they would soon be moving to the United States.

 

AN ARDUOUS JOURNEY

For Yemenis, the situation is particularly difficult. Because the United States does not maintain a diplomatic post in Yemen, its citizens are assigned to other countries to apply for their visas, and many of them to travel to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. The journey to a country 4,000 miles (6,400 km) away can be expensive and arduous for Yemenis, whose country, the Middle East’s poorest, is embroiled in a two-year conflict.

Most of the Yemenis who come to Malaysia make their first stop at a high-rise apartment building on the outskirts of the capital, where they have built a small community. Because of immigration restrictions, they are not allowed to work and are slowly running out of money. Most survive from funds donated by other Yemenis or sent by relatives back home.

“Imagine you get notified you got the golden ticket, only to have it yanked away,” said Joshua Goldstein, a U.S. immigration attorney who advises lottery winners.

The so-called “diversity visa” program was passed in its current form by Congress in 1990 to provide a path to U.S. residency for citizens from a range of countries with historically low rates of immigration to the United States.

Because it has relatively few educational or professional requirements, it tends to attract people from poorer countries. In Ghana and Sierra Leone, for instance, more than 6 percent of the population in each of the West African nations entered the lottery in 2015.

Yemeni officials in Washington launched talks with the State Department this month to find a way to get dozens of Yemeni lottery winners into the United States despite the travel ban, said Yemen’s ambassador to the United States, Ahmed bin Mubarak.

“They’ve been in Malaysia for more than six months and sold everything in Yemen,” bin Mubarak said. “We are doing what we can.”

U.S. officials said they would work with Yemen’s government to help those who qualify for exceptions to the travel ban to be allowed in on a case-by-case basis, said Mohammed al-Hadhrami, a diplomat at Yemen’s embassy in Washington.

A State Department official declined to comment on how the United States was working with Yemen on the issue.

 

‘YANKED AWAY’

It is unclear exactly how many lottery winners are now caught up in the travel ban, which affects Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen, but in 2015, more than 10,000 people from the six countries won the lottery, and 4,000 of them eventually got visas.

Yemeni officials provided Reuters with a list of Yemeni lottery winners, mostly in Malaysia, which they have also given to the State Department. It showed 58 Yemenis still waiting for a response to their applications, including some who have been stuck in security checks for more than eight months.

The State Department declined to comment on the figures, but departmental data shows that 206 Yemenis received diversity visas between March and June.

Following the June 26 Supreme Court ruling, State Department officials told lottery winners from the six countries that their visas would not be granted during the 90-day period the travel ban is in place unless they can demonstrate close family ties or other approved connections to a person or institution in the United States, according to an email seen by Reuters.

Yemeni officials are scrambling to help the country’s lottery winners demonstrate how they might qualify for an exemption and are also pushing to get a waiver for those who don’t have any relationships, Hadhrami said.

Rafek Ahmed al-Sanani, a 22-year-old farmer with a high school education, is among the Yemenis stuck in Malaysia. He traveled there in December via a route that included a 22-hour bus ride followed by flights to Egypt, Qatar and finally Malaysia.

“I was the first one to apply for the lottery in my family,” said Sanani, one of nine children in a family from Ibb governorate in Yemen’s north. “I want to come to the United States to learn English and continue my studies.”

Sanani said he had to borrow $10,000 to pay for his trip to Malaysia and living expenses. As he waits to hear the outcome of his application, he is resigned to his fate.

“What can I do?” he said. “I will accept reality.”

 

(Additional reporting by Rozanna Latif in Kuala Lumpur and Yara Bayoumy in Washington; Editing by Sue Horton and Ross Colvin)

 

U.S. Supreme Court breathes new life into Trump’s travel ban

People walk outside the the U.S. Supreme Court building after the Court granted parts of the Trump administration's emergency request to put his travel ban into effect immediately while the legal battle continues, in Washington, U.S., June 26, 2017

By Lawrence Hurley and Andrew Chung

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday handed a victory to President Donald Trump by reviving parts of a travel ban on people from six Muslim-majority countries that he said is needed for national security but that opponents decry as discriminatory.

The justices narrowed the scope of lower court rulings that had completely blocked key parts of a March 6 executive order that Trump had said was needed to prevent terrorism in the United States, allowing his temporary ban to go into effect for people with no strong ties such as family or business to the United States. [http://tmsnrt.rs/2seb3bb]

The court issued its order on the last day of its current term and agreed to hear oral arguments during its next term starting in October so it can decide finally whether the ban is lawful in a major test of presidential powers.

In a statement, Trump called the high court’s action “a clear victory for our national security,” saying the justices allowed the travel suspension to become largely effective.

“As president, I cannot allow people into our country who want to do us harm. I want people who can love the United States and all of its citizens, and who will be hardworking and productive,” Trump added.

Trump’s March 6 order called for a blanket 90-day ban on people from Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen and a 120-day ban on all refugees while the government implemented stronger vetting procedures. The court allowed a limited version of the refugee ban, which had also been blocked by courts, to go into effect.

Trump issued the order amid rising international concern about attacks carried out by Islamist militants like those in Paris, London, Brussels, Berlin and other cities. But challengers said no one from the affected countries had carried out attacks in the United States.

Federal courts said the travel ban violated federal immigration law and was discriminatory against Muslims in violation of the U.S. Constitution. Critics called it a discriminatory “Muslim ban.”

Ahmed al-Nasi, an official in Yemen’s Ministry of Expatriate Affairs, voiced disappointment.

“We believe it will not help in confronting terrorism and extremism, but rather will increase the feeling among the nationals of these countries that they are all being targeted, especially given that Yemen is an active partner of the United States in the war on terrorism and that there are joint operations against terrorist elements in Yemen,” he said.

Groups that challenged the ban, including the American Civil Liberties Union, said that most people from the affected countries seeking entry to the United States would have the required connections. But they voiced concern the administration would interpret the ban as broadly as it could.

“It’s going to be very important for us over this intervening period to make sure the government abides by the terms of the order and does not try to use it as a back door into implementing the full-scale Muslim ban that it’s been seeking to implement,” said Omar Jadwat, an ACLU lawyer.

During the 2016 presidential race, Trump campaigned for “a total and complete shutdown” of Muslims entering the United States. The travel ban was a signature policy of Trump’s first few months as president.

‘BONA FIDE RELATIONSHIP’

In an unusual unsigned decision, the Supreme Court on Monday said the travel ban will go into effect “with respect to foreign nationals who lack any bona fide relationship with a person or entity in the United States.”

A lack of a clearly defined relationship would bar from entry people from the six countries and refugees with no such ties.

Hawaii Attorney General Douglas Chin, who successfully challenged the ban in lower courts, said that students from affected countries due to attend the University of Hawaii would still be able to do so.

Both bans were to partly go into effect 72 hours after the court’s decision. The Department of Homeland Security promised clear and sufficient public notice in coordination with the travel industry.

Trump signed the order as a replacement for a Jan. 27 one issued a week after he became president that also was blocked by federal courts, but not before it caused chaos at airports and provoked numerous protests.

Even before the Supreme Court action the ban applied only to new visa applicants, not people who already have visas or are U.S. permanent residents, known as green card holders. The executive order also made waivers available for a foreign national seeking to enter the United States to resume work or study, visit a spouse, child or parent who is a U.S. citizen, or for “significant business or professional obligations.” Refugees “in transit” and already approved would have been able to travel to the United States under the executive order.

A CONSERVATIVE COURT

The case was Trump’s first major challenge at the Supreme Court, where he restored a 5-4 conservative majority with the appointment of Neil Gorsuch, who joined the bench in April. There are five Republican appointees on the court and four Democratic appointees. The four liberal justices were silent.

Gorsuch was one of the three conservative justices who would have granted Trump’s request to put the order completely into effect. Fellow conservative Justice Clarence Thomas wrote a dissenting opinion in which he warned that requiring officials to differentiate between foreigners who have a connection to the United States and those who do not will prove unworkable.

“Today’s compromise will burden executive officials with the task of deciding – on peril of contempt – whether individuals from the six affected nations who wish to enter the United States have a sufficient connection to a person or entity in this country,” Thomas wrote.

The state of Hawaii and a group of plaintiffs in Maryland represented by the American Civil Liberties Union argued that the order violated federal immigration law and the Constitution’s First Amendment prohibition on the government favoring or disfavoring any particular religion. Regional federal appeals courts in Virginia and California both upheld district judge injunctions blocking the order.

(Reporting by Lawrence Hurley. Additional reporting by Andrew Chung and Yeganeh Torbati in Washington and Mohammed Ghobari in Sanaa, Yemen; Editing by Will Dunham and Howard Goller)