Somalians demonstrate at EU headquarters

By Richard Newton
Somalians living across Europe have demonstrated outside the European Union (EU) headquarters in Brussels, calling for the bloc to fund peace, not war in the horn of Africa.

The demonstrators say the EU and the United States are talking peace but fueling conflict in the region. One of the demonstrators Mohamed Arif says: “We came to say to Europeans that they should stop our taxes from being paid to Ethiopians in order to kill our women, children and old people and destroy our home towns.”

Ethiopian backed Somali government troops are still battling the Islamic Courts Union, a militia that ousted United States-backed warlords from Mogadishu in 2006 and briefly ruled large parts of the country before being defeated by Ethiopian forces last year.

The demonstrators say if the West stopped interfering, Somalians could live in peace. But peace is something that has eluded Somalia for over 15 years and with 14 peace accords that have come and gone since civil war broke out in 1991.