Somalia

The three Somali women sat huddled together in a corner of an empty, dusty room in a camp for displaced people in northern Somalia, their faces etched with grief and resignation.

They were all rape victims. Two of them had been gang-raped, by up to six men.

11/12/2010 - Maternal mortality rates in Somalia are much too high. In order to improve maternal and child health, women must be able to better access medical care.

Galkayo (RBC Radio):- THE curtain fell in style 10th December 2010 on the 16 Days of Activism Against Gender Based Violence campaign in Galkayo Town, Puntland State Somalia, when hundreds of youth and their supporters draped in red and white head bands gathered for the final match of a soccer tournament organized to commemorate the campaign.

Reporting for BBC News, Zeinab Bedawi gets rare access to UN displaced people's camps in the towns of Gaalkacyo and Boosaaso in northern Somalia.

They are home to 30,000 victims of one of Africa's longest conflicts.

The clip starts with a group of Somalian women vibrantly greeting the BBC news team at the UN camp.

The three masked gunmen burst into Asha Muse Ali's tent at night and grabbed every item of value they could find: $85 in cash, a cell phone and a gold ring.

Then the attackers embarked on a crime that carries a severe social stigma in this conservative Muslim country: They raped Ali and her aunt.

GALKAYO, Somalia - Aid workers in Somalia say they are seeing an alarming number of rapes in refugee camps housing those who fled violence in Mogadishu.

The Galkayo Education Center for Peace and Development said it has documented 51 cases of rape against women in camps in the Somali town of Galkayo this year. Last year the centre documented 104 cases. Many cases go unreported.

Kismayo, Somalia (AHN) - Somali extremist group Al Shabaab arrested 30 women for selling the plant drug khat inside Kismayo, the regional capital of Lower Jubba in southern Somalia, witnesses said Monday.

Militants of the group detained the women late Sunday after search operations in the town, according local residents, adding that all were taken into custody.

NAIROBI, Kenya -- Last week two girls, aged 14 and 18, were shot in a public execution in Somalia after the extremist al Shabaab Islamic movement accused them of being spies.

But as the news broke, a group of Somali women were meeting in Nairobi to discuss their role in bringing peace to the war-torn country.

The Somali rebel group Al-shababa has ordered women and children for the participation in the ongoing fight in the country, local has reported.

The rebel fights against the government forces and their allied troops of the African union troops popularly known as AMISOM in the capital, Mogadishu.

The United Nations envoy for Somalia today strongly condemned the summary execution of two young women who had been accused of spying in the central town of Beledweyne by the Islamic militant group known as al-Shabaab.

The two, who were reportedly just teenagers, were killed by firing squad on Wednesday in front of hundreds of residents in the town, according to media reports.