The government of Djibouti permitted the controversial private US security firm Blackwater 'to operate an armed ship from the port of Djibouti' and to 'use lethal force against pirates'. The permission was given in February 2009, it is revealed in a cable from the US Embassy in Djibouti, published by WikiLeaks.

A 'forgotten emergency' has left tens of thousands of pastoralists in Djibouti needing food and nutrition assistance as well as longer-term coping mechanisms, according to the UN. The tiny Horn of Africa state is the subject of a US$38.9 million appeal for food aid ($16.2 million), agriculture and livestock ($6.5 million), health and nutrition ($7.4 million), water and sanitation ($2.4 million), and emergency preparedness and sanitation ($6.4 million).

About half of Djibouti’s rural population will need emergency food assistance this year due to the combined effects of drought, livestock losses, unfavourable livestock-to-cereal terms of trade and high staple food prices, according to an assessment by the government and UN agencies.

Drought conditions and high staple food prices have left more than 340,000 people - over half of Djibouti's population - highly or extremely food insecure and in need of emergency food and non-food assistance through the end of 2009. Four consecutive years of minimal rains to support pastoral and agropastoral production have left rural and urban Djiboutians even more dependent on food imports at a time when international commodity prices have risen steadily.

Reporters Without Borders has condemned the imprisonment for the second time this year of journalist Houssein Ahmed Farah, a contributor to the opposition weekly Le Renouveau and brother of its managing editor, Daher Ahmed Farah. The state prosecutor yesterday ordered him detained in the capital’s Gabode prison.

In an attempt to activate the role of intellectuals in the conflict-ridden Horn of African region, Djibouti will offer a forum to the region's intellectuals to debate and start a dialogue on the region's economic, political and social problems in a conference due to be held in the second half of November 2007.

Al-Jazeera reports that a Djibouti criminal court has convicted a human rights activist of defamation, sentencing him to six months in prison and fining him 480 euros. Jean-Paul Noel Abdi, chairman of the Djibouti League of Human Rights, was found guilty on Sunday of falsely accusing a presidential guard soldier of rape, according to an unnamed judicial source.

After being sought by police for five days, Houssein Ahmed Farah was arrested on 7 February 2007 and taken to the criminal investigation department, Reporters Without Borders has learned from his brother, Daher Ahmed Farah, managing editor of the privately-owned weekly "Le Renouveau" and head of the Movement for Democratic Renewal (MRD), an opposition party.

Djibouti has joined the Pan-African Network (PAN) that aims to bridge the digital divide and offer telemedicine & tele-education services to the countries of the African Union (AU). PAN is part of the proposed plan to connect all the 53 nations of the African Union by a satellite and fiber optic network that would provide effective tele-education, telemedicine, internet, videoconferencing and VoIP services and also support e-Governance, e-Commerce, infotainment, resource mapping and meteorological services.

For thousands of years, girls in the area that is now the tiny African country of Djibouti, have been subjected to pharaonic circumcision. It is a practice that involves cutting away a girl’s inner labia and clitoris, and sewing the wound together, leaving a tiny hole for passing urine and menstrual blood. Despite medical evidence that genital mutilation puts women at risk of infection, pain and complications during childbirth, social pressure is such that most mothers opt to circumcise their daughters.

Djibouti’s incumbent president, Ismail Omar Guelleh, won 100 percent of the vote in Friday’s presidential election - in which he was the sole candidate – according to the official news agency, Agence Djiboutienne d'Information (ADI). Guelleh will now serve a second and final six-year term as leader of the tiny Horn of Africa nation.

The government of Djibouti has ratified the African Union's Maputo Protocol on female genital mutilation (FGM), which requires its member states to ban the practice. The protocol was ratified last Thursday by Djibouti’s prime minister, Dileita Mohamed Dileita, at a two-day subregional conference on FGM in the presence of representatives of the AU, No Peace without Justice (NPWJ), an Italian NGO, and the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF).

Djibouti s’engage vers la voie très prochaine d’une ratification du Protocole de Maputo relatif aux droits des femmes en Afrique

[English translation follows]

L’Union Nationale des Femmes Djiboutiennes , membre du Mouvement de Solidarité pour les Droits des Femmes en Afrique mène depuis juillet 2004 des actions de plaidoyer en faveur de la ratification par la République de Djibouti du protocole à la Charte Africaine des Droits de l’Homme et des Peuples relatif aux droits des femmes.

Grâce à l’engagement de la première dame de Djibouti, présidente de l’UNFD, Madame Kadra Mahamoud Haid, la société civile djiboutienne se mobilise en faveur de la ratification du protocole de Maputo.

Par le moyen de pétitions, une large frange de la population djiboutienne composée de parlementaires, de juges, de personnes opérant dans les secteurs public et privé demeure aujourd’hui avisée de l’existence de cette convention africaine promouvant les droits des femmes en Afrique.

En juin 2004, une pétition a , en un temps record de 48 heures, recueilli 270 signatures.
Les médias djiboutiens n’ont pas manqué à leur tour de souligner les actions de plaidoyer menées par l’UNFD ; Saisissant l’occasion de la conférence des Chefs d’Etats de l’Union Africaine réunis en juillet 2004 à Addis-Abeba, l’UNFD a adressé, par la voie de communiqués de presse à la Radio télévision de Djibouti dans les quatre langues nationales arabe, afar , somali et français, des messages à la population djiboutienne en vue de l’informer de l’existence du protocole de Maputo, convention avant-gardiste dans la protection des femmes djiboutiennes et a fortiori des femmes africaines.

La stratégie informative de l’UNFD s’est poursuivie par l’engagement officiel de la première dame de Djibouti en faveur de la ratification par Djibouti du protocole de Maputo et ce par le voie d’une interview conduite par le journal « la Nation ».

L’UNFD, connue depuis les premiers jours de l’indépendance de la République de Djibouti pour son fervent combat en faveur des droits des femmes djiboutiennes, démontre ses capacités mobilisatrices, portant cette fois le flambeau de la cause des femmes de tout le continent africain.

En décembre 2004, dans le cadre des 16 jours d’activisme, 383 signatures ont été collectées par le support d’une pétition.

Par ailleurs, les militantes de l’UNFD ne relâchent pas leurs efforts de sensibilisation ; Ainsi, au cours d’un colloque « Femmes et Citoyenneté à Djibouti »organisé par l’association djiboutienne dénommée Solidarité Féminine qui s’est tenu le 17 et 18 janvier 2005, Mme Zeinab Kamil Ali a présenté, devant une large auditoire composé de personnalités issues d’horizons divers, les disposition méritoires du protocole de Maputo, la genèse du texte ainsi qu’une analyse comparative du protocole avec la législation djiboutienne.

Réaffirmant les atouts du protocole de Maputo, convention caractérisée par son pragmatisme, sa connaissance de la réalité des femmes africaines et sa volonté de conciliation des différentes acceptions juridiques de la protection des droits de la femme africaine, cette militante a clôturé son plaidoyer sur l’indispensable texte de référence que constituera, dès sa ratification, le protocole de Maputo pour les besoins de toute réforme de la législation djiboutienne relatif aux droits des femmes.

Fort de cette effervescence de la société civile djiboutienne, il semblerait que le Gouvernement de la République de Djibouti par l’entremise de Mme Hawa Ahmed Youssouf, Ministre déléguée à la promotion de la femme a déjà inscrit, sur son agenda, l’adoption en conseil des ministres du projet de loi portant ratification du protocole à la Charte Africaine des Droits de l’Homme et des Peuples relatif aux droits des femmes.

[TRANSLATION]
Since July 2004 the National Union of Djiboutian Women (UNFD), member of the Solidarity Movement for Women’s Rights in Africa, has been carrying out lobbying activities promoting ratification by the Djibouti Republic of the protocol relating to women’s rights in the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights.

Thanks to the involvement of Kadra Mahamoud Haid, first lady of Djibouti and President of UNFD, Djibouti civil society is mobilising in favour of ratifying the protocol.

A wide sector of the Djibouti population including members of parliament, judges and public and private sector workers is now aware of the existence of this African convention promoting women’s rights in Africa.

One petition in June 2004 raised 270 signatures in a record 48 hours. Nor did the Djibouti media miss their opportunity to highlight the UNFD lobbying actions: UNFD seized the opportunity of the African Union Heads of State meeting in Addis Ababa in July 2004 to prepare press communiqués for RTD (Djibouti Radio Television station) in the four national languages of Arabic, Afar, Somali and French informing the people of Djibouti of the existence of the Maputo protocol, a progressive convention in the vanguard of protecting Djiboutian women and indeed all African women.

The UNFD information strategy continued with the first lady of Djibouti’s official support for ratification of the Maputo protocol by Djibouti in an interview published in Djibouti’s ‘La Nation’ newspaper.

UNFD, known since the early days of the Djibouti Republic’s independence for its ardent fight for the rights of Djiboutian women, has demonstrated its ability to mobilise support, this time carrying the torch for women’s rights over the whole African continent.

In December 2004 during a 16-day action period, 383 signatures were collected with the help of a petition.

And UNFD activists have not been slackening their awareness-raising efforts since then: at a symposium from 17 to 18 January on ‘Women and Citizenship in Djibouti’ organised by the Djibouti association Women’s Solidarity, Mrs Zeinab Kamil Ali made a presentation to an audience of people from a variety of backgrounds on the positive measures in the Maputo protocol and how the text was arrived at, as well as a comparative analysis of the protocol with Djibouti legislation.

Activist Mrs Ali reaffirmed the key points in the Maputo protocol, describing it as a convention characterised by its pragmatism, its awareness of the reality of African women and its willingness to reconcile the differing juridical readings of the protection of African women’s rights. She brought her advocacy to a close, highlighting how indispensable a reference text the Maputo protocol once ratified will be for the purpose of any reform of the Djibouti legislature relating to women’s rights.

It now appears that through the intervention of Mrs Hawa Ahmed Youssouf, Minister in charge of women’s advancement, the Government of the Djibouti Republic has already put the adoption of the draft law on the council of ministers’ schedule, bringing closer the ratification of the protocol.

[our thanks to Clare Smedley for providing this translation]
* Please send comments to

Abdu Mohmed, a native of Djibouti's northern town of Tadjourah who now lives in the capital, Djibouti city, still remembers his sister screaming from pain as she was circumcised years ago. "How many women have been destroyed?" he asked, referring to the widespread practice of female genital mutilation (FGM), in this tiny Horn of Africa country of 600,000 people.

Inadequate rainfall from July to September has brought about food shortages in the southeastern and northwestern pastoral zones, causing an increase in food prices since September and bringing hardship to many households throughout Djibouti, a famine alert agency reported.

The Djiboutian ministry for the promotion of women is conducting training programmes on HIV/AIDS for female peer-educators, saying it is mainly targeting young women who are most vulnerable to infection. Amina Abdi, the ministry's HIV programme manager, told IRIN on Monday, at the end of a three-day seminar to train 20 educators, that her ministry's HIV/AIDS programme would support behavioural change among young Djiboutian women.

Djibouti has made significant progress in reducing maternal mortality over the past 10 years, but the number of women who die in childbirth is still high, the Djiboutian national coordinator for reproductive health, Safia Elmi, said. "In 1994, Djibouti's maternal mortality rate was 740 for 100,000 live births. That is a lot. By 2002, it had fallen to 690 deaths per 100,000 live births," Elmi told IRIN.

The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) announced this week that Djibouti could increase its food production by up to 50% over 5 years if the farmers planted faster growing crops more adaptable to short rains. At present the country has to import about 80% of its food requirements, including all its rice, wheat, flour and sugar.

Some 40 HIV-positive people on Tuesday began to receive free anti-retrovirals (ARVs) after Health Minister Muhammad Ali Kamil launched Djibouti's first distribution of ARV medication at Peltier Hospital, the country's main medical centre. Medical staff at the hospital told IRIN that the treatment was started through a donor-funded programme called Global Care for People Living with AIDS (Prise en charge globale des personnes vivant avec le SIDA).

Harking back to traditional caravans as carriers of news as well as goods, professional singers, musicians and actors travelled for three weeks through Djibouti's five districts to spread the word about Millennium Development Goals, and the important role women can play in achieving them. Organized by UNDP and other agencies in the UN country team, the Caravan on Human Development included 40 people, UNDP vehicles, two buses and a truck with camping gear.