Local Somali traders linked to illegal charcoal trade

By STANDARD REPORTER and AGENCIES

Many of the Kismayu charcoal traders doing business with Kenyan Somali businessmen have known links to Al-Shabaab, United Nations monitors say.

They get around charcoal trade restrictions by presenting paperwork that shows their charcoal originates from Kenya or Djibouti.

One Kismayu trader with strong links to Al-Shabaab is Hassan Mohamud Yusuf, alias Awlibaax, from the Mareehan clan and chairman of the Juba Business Committee, the UN monitoring group said in a recent report. He is also linked to Dubai’s key charcoal businessman, Saleh Da’ud Abdulla, who has connections to Al Shabaab, it added.

Another is Ali Ahmed Naaji, from the minority Cawro-maleh clan, who “arranges or provides loans to Al Shabaab, and makes investments for them in South Sudan,” the report said.

It said Yusuf and Naaji alone account for around 32 per cent of charcoal exports from Kismayu, most of which go to Dubai.

The largest purchaser of charcoal in Dubai is Al Qaeda International General Trading, owned by Baba Mansoor Ghayedi, alias Haji Baba, an Iranian living in Dubai who described himself to the Monitoring Group as the ‘King of Charcoal’. 

The report said Haji Baba denied importing Somali charcoal in violation of the UN ban and that the paperwork shows his charcoal comes from Kenya and Djibouti, that banned charcoal exports.

Impounded

The Monitoring Group included in one annex what it said were examples of false bills of lading certifying Somali charcoal as coming from Kenya.

The United Arab Emirates has been aware of the illegal Somali charcoal shipments, the monitors said. In September 2012 it notified the Monitoring Group that it had impounded a shipment of 100,000 sacks of Somali charcoal.

The monitors said charcoal traders in Dubai informed them that the impounded shipment eventually reached the market.

Some 10,000 bags of charcoal were unloaded in Dubai and the rest in Saudi Arabia. The consignee of that shipment was Haji Baba.

Adapted from a Reuters report by Louis Charbonneau (New York), Abdi Sheikh (Mogadishu) and James Macharia (Nairobi).