Mogadishu — US President Donald Trump’s derogatory remarks about Somalis rankled some in the East African nation, though Prime Minister Hamza Abdi Barre says the US leader “has insulted many countries”.
In comments made during a cabinet meeting on Tuesday, Trump described Somalis as “garbage” and said “we want them out of our country”.
“They just run around killing each other,” said Trump, who has long used racist and sexist language. “Their country stinks.”
Abdisalan Omar, an elder in central Somalia, said he was shocked by Trump’s crude language. “The world should respond,” he said. “Presidents who speak in such a way cannot serve the US and the world.”
Trump has stepped up attacks on people in the US who come from Somalia since last week’s shooting of two National Guard troops in Washington, which led him to promise to freeze migration from “third-world countries”.
An Afghan national has been charged with murder in the Washington shootings. He has pleaded not guilty.
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“In our culture, we do not use abusive language,” Bule Ismail, a construction worker in the capital Mogadishu, told Reuters. “It is incumbent upon the US and its people to take measures and to be angry with Trump first, then take Trump to a mental hospital for a checkup.”
Somalia’s Prime Minister Hamza Abdi Barre struck a more diplomatic note while addressing an innovation summit in Mogadishu, noting that Trump had also insulted other nations.
“Trump has insulted many countries, including Nigeria and South Africa. There are things that do not need comment; we just leave and skip. It is better to ignore than to make his words look like an issue,” he said.
Trump said last month he was terminating temporary deportation protections for Somalis living in Minnesota, saying “Somali gangs” were terrorising the state. He did not offer evidence and local officials said his portrayal was untrue.
The Trump administration said on Tuesday it had paused all immigration applications, including green card and US citizenship processing, filed by immigrants from 19 non-European countries, citing concerns over national security and public safety.
The pause applies to people from 19 countries that were already subjected to a partial travel ban in June, placing further restrictions on immigration — a core feature of US President Donald Trump’s political platform.
The list of countries includes Afghanistan and Somalia.
The official memorandum outlining the new policy cites the attack on National Guard members in Washington last week in which an Afghan man has been arrested as a suspect. One member of the National Guard was killed and another was critically wounded in the shooting.
The list of countries targeted in the memorandum includes Afghanistan, Burma, Chad, the Republic of the Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Haiti, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen, which were subjected to the most severe immigration restrictions in June, including a full suspension on entries with a few exceptions.
Others on the list of 19 countries, which were subjected to partial restrictions in June, are Burundi, Cuba, Laos, Sierra Leone, Togo, Turkmenistan and Venezuela.
Reuters
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