MOGADISHU (Halbeeg News) – Al-Shabaab group on Sunday burnt a truck which was carrying charcoal to Mogadishu, witnesses said.
According to locals, the armed Al shabaab fighters reportedly confiscated the vehicles loaded with charcoal and burnt it down in Bula Lowa village just 25km away from Afgoye.
The local authorities of Afgoye district has not yet commented on the issues.
It is not yet clear why the group burnt the vehicle and the charcoal as the fate of the driver is unclear.
The charcoal business has become al-Shabaab’s most lucrative source of income, according to the United Nations Monitoring Group on Somalia and Eritrea.
According to a UN monitoring report, the group always pays for weapons and fighters with revenue it earns from taxing traders and from the export of charcoal, trade that was banned by UN Security Council Resolution 2036, which was adopted in 2012.
Some two million trees are felled every year in the trade worth 120 million dollars (€100 million), a UN estimate shows. It names the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Kuwait and Oman as the key buyers.
Concern is growing that Somalia is slowly turning into a desert due to the loss of an estimated 8.2 million trees between 2011 and 2017 alone.
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