Thousands of sacks of dark charcoal sit atop one another in Somalia's southern port city of Kismayo, signs of an industry once worth some $25 million dollar a year to the Islamist extremist rebels who controlled the region.
The good news is that al-Shabab militants can no longer fund their insurgency through the illegal export of the charcoal. Kenyan troops last month invaded Kismayo and forced out the insurgents, putting a halt to the export of charcoal, a trade the U.N. banned earlier this year in an effort to cut the militants' profits.
But the flip side to the charcoal problem is that residents no longer are making money. The African Union this week urged the U.N. Security Council to consider an "urgent solution" to the piles of sitting sacks.Somali traders want UN to lift charcoal trade ban
Short link: