Government Ends Short Arab Hunting Expedition Amid Local Concerns

[Jacaylbaro]

Berbera, Somaliland, February 23, 2008 (SL Times) – The Somaliland government has prematurely ended an Arab hunting expedition in Sahil region when it emerged that the hunting party had travelled outside the government permitted hunting zone.

 

The expedition was organised by wealthy nationals from United Arab Emirates and numbered 10 people. The hunt consisted of using falconry birds to hunt down small prey and shooting large wild game (gazelles) in Sahil region.

 

In recent times, there has been an increase of rich UAE nationals coming to Somaliland to hunt wild animals with trained falcons and sophisticated hunting rifles.

 

This latest expedition was to last 2 weeks but had to be called off by the government on the fourth day when the Arabs ventured outside their usual government demarcated hunt zones which is in and around Berbera district and in other parts of Sahil region.

 

SL Times has learnt that the Arabs were initially told by the officials in Berbera that due to recent security breaches in Sanag region where a German NGO worker was kidnapped by an armed group, that they were temporarily to stay put inside their [Maansoor] hotel grounds in Berbera. The curfew was ordered by the Berbera police department and town authorities.

 

Staff at Maansoor hotel disclosed to SL Times that “on the 3 rd day of the curfew the Arabs decided to break the curfew, paid off their police bodyguards and their hired local vehicle drivers and set off to conduct their hunting expedition on their own without the government’s consent and their police bodyguards or drivers”.

 

SL Times, furthermore, had learnt that on the same day the Arabs left Berbera, two district town governors in Loyado and Bulahar, in Awdal and Sahil regions, had radioed in to the Sahil governor and its regional police headquarters and notified them of the Arabs’ presence in their districts, and that it was agitating the local populace and their safety cannot be guaranteed by the districts and that they should immediately be escorted back to Berbera.

 

It took the Sahil authorities two days to track down and locate the Arabs. On Tuesday the Arabs were returned under heavy police guard to their Berbera hotel and were deported on Friday by the government from Berbera airport to UAE.

 

The Minister of Rural development and Environment, Fuad A. Ade, whose ministry is responsible for issuing the UAE nationals permits to hunt wild life in Somaliland, declined to be interviewed in relation to the Arabs’ sudden exit out of the country.

 

 

Source: Somaliland Times

[N.O.R.F]

Lets hope they dont come back.

[Jacaylbaro]

I hope the don't .............. bloody hunguri weynayaal.

 

 

Their stomach is the first and last thing they think of.

[NASSIR]

SL Times has learnt that the Arabs were initially told by the officials in Berbera that due to recent

security breaches in Sanag

region where a German NGO worker was kidnapped by an armed group, that they were temporarily to stay put inside their [Maansoor] hotel grounds in Berbera. The curfew was ordered by the Berbera police department and town authorities

What about the near-invasion of Badhan by SL troops?

 

JB, is the German-aid worker more important than the people that SL militia pose threats against their will? I don't get it.

[Jacaylbaro]

Invation ??????????????????

 

I think i don't get that one ..........