Annalena Tonelli

[macalimuu]

Incomprehensible and beyond belief, Annalena Tonelli was killed in Somaliland and the whole of Somali is in a mourning again for a brutal murder towards a woman who has made a lot of sacrifices for this poor nation.

A defenseless and disarmed Annalena Tonelli was gunned down in Borama.

She has operated independently in Somalia for about three decades like a volunteer. She has received the Nansen refugee Award, the most important and prestigious award for people involved in helping and sheltering refugees and displaced people.

Annalena known also like "the mother Teresa of the Somalia", had founded and directed a tuberculosis hospital in Borama. Forli, her native city in Italy is in mourning also. The city will also commemorate a park or a street for her work.

 

The sitting of city council opened with a minute of silence and the commemorative speech from the mayor, Rusticali Franc. On the government palaces of the city flags were taken down and posters of Annalena were posted in memory of her humanitarian work in Somalia.

 

Who Is Annalena? Missionary, forlivese of birth, lived 30 years with the Somalis.

Annalena Tonelli has been recognized as a Knight from the President of the Republic, Ciampi in 56th anniversary of the Republic on June 2nd, 2002.

 

Early in her work she had successfully founded and established an orphanage in the port city of Merca.

Then, it was Borama's turn, a city in northwest of Somalia, where she has reactivated the outpatients department of a local hospital for the cure and prevention of tuberculosis where she cared about thousands sic with TB, a very intensive and hard job.

 

She also supervised schools for children and adults, courses of sanitary and hygiene instructions to paramedics and hospital staff one school for deaf and mute children and handicapped.

 

 

The World Health Organization supplied the medicinal essential things and Annalena supplied the expense of the maintenance of the structure and paid wages to hospital workers, expenses of food to the patients, material and scholastic equipments.

 

She used to sleep only four hours a day and spent the remaining hours tending patients and was always beside of the sick ones. There are 200 beds in the Borama hospital, all occupied. She had only one dress, pair of sandals and a scarf for a possession. She was always walked bare feet. She was poor among the poor and she was with the mentally ill patients, a refugee herself among the dispossessed and internally displaced. He life was a sacrifice to the poor. However, she never considered it that way. " I laugh of those who say such things, mine is a life of pure happiness, what is more beautiful living among the sick and the poor" she renounced of any such suggestions. Beautiful even if she constantly sees sufferings, beautiful even when she has been threatened, assaulted, abused, driven her crazy. " God, has given me the ability to face every problem and succeed"

She was 60 years old and spent half of her life in Somalia, 30 years. She was very lean and thin, had a gray hair, she graduated from Law school in Italy but dedicated her life to assisting the poor. She was a humanitarian and very wonderful lady!

 

Somalia lost a great asset who did her adopted country more than any other person did. What a grief and loss.

[Gediid]

Shocking and beyond comprehension why someone would kill this innocent lady who has devoted her life to helping Somalis.I was ashamed to call myself Somali when I read the article.

[Macalin]

Beleive it or not, This Woman has had a special place in my LIFE...My MOM worked with her in the early 70's in NFD..although i was 2 young to rem her face what she did in my NATIVE town is beyond wat any muslim person has ever done.

She was nice,warm comapasionate,altruistic,funny ,witty simple and plain clear WARM HEARTED....she was expelled from KENYA in 1984 when she recorded videos of police brutality in the infamous waggala masacre.

 

If she was MUSLIM i would have said ilaaha unaxaristo,BUT who ever killed mrs 'ALAALIINA'-as she was knnown by the locals,needs to realise that he made a grave mistake.

 

Oh and tell me who would trust somalis again?

[ayaanick]

I cann't beleive this really had happened. when are we going to learn our lesson. How could we do such a thing. A nation full of mad-killers? This lady has only done righ by us, not because of force, but by choice, and this is how we re-pay her. I am just ashamed to call myself a Somali today!!!

 

ayaan

[miles-militis]

My condolences!

Perhaps condolences from the nomads could be extended to the victim’s family and colleagues.

 

If one could obtain the name and address of the charity organisation(s) she worked with and for, we could forward an E-condolence card - an indication, if you will of how sorry and distraught we feel for this regrettable incident. No point in blaming anyone. Cheers.

[Bachelor]

Very sad day for many somali people who are in need. Some one who is helping poor people should not be treated like that. Black day for all somali Those who did such this must be brought to justice.

[Gediid]

I saw this on the online diary of this aid worker from the Phillipines in Hargesysa.......

 

 

 

 

 

Hon. Gurti Haji Abdi Hussein (Head of Somaliland's council of elders), Somaliland Vice-President Ahmed Yusuf Yasin and UNHCR Sub-Office head Adel Jasmin

 

Today, members of the international community and the Somaliland government pays tribute to Annalena in a Memorial service at Panorama hall in Hargeisa. A simple affair that will remember her contribution and her work in Somaliland.

 

Members of local non-government organizations from Borama were saddened by Annalena’s sudden demise. There were news saying that patients of the TB hospital Annalena’s managing started going back to their homes. One wonders what will happen to them, many people wonder how the Borama authorities will handle the situation.

 

Borama-based foreign staff from various international agencies are still trying to figure out when to go back to that town. In a couple of days, maybe.

 

Bishop Giorgi, Annalena's sponsor and friend rushed to Hargeisa from Mogadishu hoping that he would be able to give her last rites, but he came a little too late. His meetings with government officials and the President about the possibilities of continuing Annalena's work were quite interesting. He noted that the President of Somaliland was sincerely remorse about what happened to this Italian humanitarian worker.

 

Local newspapers printed pictures and stories about tribute given to Annalena in Italy and in Forli, her hometown. News are also around about how the President of Italy reacted to her death and how the EU condemned the killing.

 

It's a pity that for a country wanting to be in the international limelight, a country aiming for international recognition, it is only when things like these happen that Somaliland is brougth to that arena.

 

I guess, it is because peace is so fragile, I am sorry but this country cannot be compared to New York or Washington, this is Somaliland where people are desperately poor, where people experienced and still are experiencing the extreme effects of war, where people are struggling to rebuild a nation. It is a country where no other country wants to give their trust and respect to. Yes, it is a place where meagre resources are a cause of envy and become causes of death of anyone who controls it.

 

Somaliland will not stop re-building itself. It did not stop when a German got killed in Burco a year ago, when a school was burnt in the same place a few months back, when a Somali became the target of a revenge killing due to a browl over a building contract. Somaliland will never stop pulling itself together. Indeed peace is the only thing this place can call their own, when the rest of its neighbors kill and fight each other. Peace in Somaliland is indeed fragile and delicate. Keeping it remains a struggle every single day in the life of this nation.

 

Here's the link to her website

 

Diary of an aid worker in Hargeysa