Faisal
faisalahali.bsky.social
Faisal
@faisalahali.bsky.social
220 followers 64 following 170 posts
Freelance journalist reporting on Somalia and East Africa. 🔗 https://www.aljazeera.com/author/faisal-ali
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I spoke with three survivors of the RSF assault on el-Fasher. They described the city’s fall in harrowing detail and a desperate journey, carrying children and themselves wounded for days to reach safety in Tawila.

www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/11...
New light shed on el-Fasher horror as survivors arrive in Sudan’s Tawila
Testimonies describe bodies in streets, families torn apart and days without food as paramilitary seizes Sudan city.
www.aljazeera.com
Reposted by Faisal
An ad in today’s LA Times paid for by San Francisco-based pro-Israel organization “Facts and Logic About the Middle East” calls accusations of Israel committing genocide in Gaza “blood libel” and says “genocide liars deserve the label of ‘antisemite’”
I interviewed Sami Hamdi's wife and his legal team. He's a British-Tunisian commentator and pro-Palestine activist that has been detained by US immigration authorities. He's been held by ICE for almost a week now

www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/10...
‘Bring him home’: Sami Hamdi’s wife urges US to release UK journalist
Soumaya Hamdi describes shock detention at San Francisco airport as lawyers file emergency legal challenge.
www.aljazeera.com
Reposted by Faisal
The night of rebellion that changed France and Algeria forever:

On the night of 31 October 1954, a series of attacks across colonial Algeria marked the start of the Algerian War – a bloody conflict that would last eight years.

rfi.my/B5iV.BS
The night of rebellion that changed France and Algeria forever
On the night of 31 October 1954, a series of attacks across colonial Algeria marked the start of the Algerian War – a bloody conflict that would last eight years. Claimed by the newly formed National…
rfi.my
"While Mengistu’s move may advance Soviet aims in Africa (see box), it also relieves the U.S. of the moral burden of backing yet another bloodthirsty dictatorship."

Archives, May 1977

time.com/archive/6881...
time.com
Been looking into why Jimmy Carter didn’t frame the 1977 Somalia-Ethiopia war purely in Cold War terms & back Mogadishu when Moscow supported Ethiopia.

His administration was signalling it no longer wanted a reactive, anti-Soviet policy in the Third World.
My latest blogpost looks at the almost simultaneous collapse of Chad, Sudan, Ethiopia and Somalia's governments at the end of the 1980s and early 1990s

89'-91: Northeast Africa's “collective near-death experience”

somaliarchive77.substack.com/p/89-91-nort...
89'-91: Northeast Africa's “collective near-death experience”
Between 1989 and 1991, every government from Chad to Somalia collapsed. The region still grapples with the legacy of this tumultous period.
somaliarchive77.substack.com
Reposted by Faisal
"Numbers matter... Yet Michael Spagat of Royal Holloway University of London fears the continent is now on the cusp of a new 'data dark age'."

My latest 👇

www.economist.com/middle-east-...
Measuring mortality is getting even harder in Africa
One estimate puts deaths in the war in Tigray at 5,325; another at 600,000
www.economist.com
Reposted by Faisal
THREAD: this investigation took up over half my year, but it's here in @thecontinent.org:
A Djiboutian drone strike in January was depicted as a army operation targeting rebels. It was actually a massacre of civilians. The bloodshed & coverup implicating Ethiopia, Djibouti, France & Turkiye.
#OSINT
Reposted by Faisal
Who doesn't like a September dramatic sky?

Blue sky, white cloud and early autumn wind over the Canal, London, York St.
In my latest piece, I spoke with Ethiopian doctors who went on strike – many of whom were arrested – over pay and working conditions earlier this year. The strikes were suspended to give the government a chance, but they could resume this month.

www.aljazeera.com/features/202...
www.aljazeera.com
Reposted by Faisal
Alex and I wanted to craft our research philosophy, and, according to Alex, Mila was the best person to lead the project. The final philosophy was more like a manifesto with 7 principles. You can read it at www.dair-institute.org/research-phi....
Research Philosophy
Our research is intended to benefit communities which are typically not served by AI.
www.dair-institute.org
This week's east Africa newsletter is up.

This week: we spoke to Afyare Elmi on the state of the nation (not good); the body of a Somali woman found in London; US likely holding its line on Somaliland; Minnesota Democrats drop Omar Fateh, & more.

www.geeskanewsletter.com/p/somalias-t...
Somalia’s third republic could end if things don’t change, warns Afyare Elmi
Issue #11: All of Somalia’s former living presidents also united to condemn the alleged misuse and sale of public land by the government.
www.geeskanewsletter.com
"Figures from a classified Israeli military intelligence database indicate five out of six Palestinians killed by Israeli forces in Gaza have been civilians, an extreme rate of slaughter rarely matched in recent decades of warfare."

www.theguardian.com/world/ng-int...
Revealed: Israeli military’s own data indicates civilian death rate of 83% in Gaza war
Figures from classified IDF database listed 8,900 named fighters as dead or probably dead in May, as overall death toll reached 53,000
www.theguardian.com