UN report: Banned Somali charcoal exports pass through Iran

UNITED NATIONS: United Nations sanctions monitors say banned charcoal exports from Somalia are thriving, generating millions of dollars a year for Al-Shabab extremists — and often passing through Iran to have their origins obscured.

That’s according to excerpts from a yet-unpublished report seen by The Associated Press.

The monitors say that six years after the UN Security Council prohibited Somali charcoal exports to stem Al-Shabab funding, an estimated three million bags of charcoal are making their way out of the Horn of Africa country each year.

The monitors say the main destinations are ports in Iran. There, they say, charcoal that is already falsely labeled as coming from Comoros, Ghana or Ivory Coast is transferred and labeled “product of Iran.”

There is no immediate response from Iran’s UN mission.