How people live today in a country whose history is similar to the parable of the biblical executions: Unrecognized Somaliland

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

A country that was not recognized even by Abkhazia and South Ossetia, a country that gained its long-suffering independence as a result of a bloody civil war - Somaliland. Now there are too hard times there: war, pestilence, famine, locust infestation … The life of these people is similar to the story of the biblical executions. Only this story is endless. And most importantly, all these troubles will one day knock on our house.

They live in Somaliland, mainly in domed huts that look like buildings made of rubbish. Most people depend on the distribution of food from government and humanitarian organizations.

Somaliland is an autonomous region of Somalia in the Horn of Africa. He declared his independence in 1991 at the start of a civil war that continues to this day. Many Somalis are nomadic shepherds. They always traveled with their animals in search of the greenest pastures. But after a series of droughts in recent years, the livestock is almost completely extinct, and the population is almost the same.

Somalis do not keep records of birth years, they count them according to the years of rains. Many say, for example, that they were born in the year biyobadan, which means "a lot of water." Fleeing from arid, extinct areas, people are settling in camps for displaced persons. Wealth in this country has always been measured by the size of the herd and how much you can share with others. In this society, no one has ever needed, people are used to helping each other.

About 30 years ago, the climate in the Horn of Africa began to change, slowly at first and then abruptly. In 2016, there was a very severe drought. Those animals that survived became extinct in 2018 and in subsequent dry years. Somaliland's economy shrank 70%. Crops died, epidemics of diseases such as cholera and diphtheria began among the population. Within three years, from half a million to 800,000 people were resettled from the barren lands - this is a quarter of the population of Somaliland.

Jessica Tierney, a climate expert at the University of Arizona at Tucson, found the region is drying up faster than at any time in the past 2,000 years. "If anyone is still in doubt about climate change," said Sara Khan, head of the Hargeisa branch of the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR), "they just have to come here to Somaliland."

But the region was not always in such a deplorable state. Just six years ago, Somalia was the second largest exporter of sheep after Australia and the main exporter of camels. The population flourished. Livestock raising was developed, truckers, municipal workers, traders, loaders worked. Ships loaded with goods departed from the shores of the country heading for markets throughout North Africa and the Middle East. On any given day, hundreds of animals were sold at the Hargeisa camel market. But today the bustle and noise have disappeared - there is silence, emptiness and lonely idle persons drinking tea.

The World Bank estimates that by 2050, 143 million people worldwide will be forced to flee their homes to avoid the effects of climate change. Some of them, like the Somalis will now become IDPs (Internally Displaced Persons), people with no hope for the future. Already, for the hundreds of thousands of Somalis who have fled war, drought and famine in their country over the past decades, a better life remains elusive.

Most of the people in these camps are women. The men either stay in their villages or leave to fight. Women have to face all kinds of dangers, the risks of being subjected to violence, raising and raising children. Human trafficking is flourishing in the country.

Somalia and Somaliland are uniquely exposed to climatic influences. Somaliland has no rivers, people depend on ephemeral ponds that fill and dry up depending on the rains. People hit wells that need to be dug deeper and deeper to get to the water. Unlike the neighboring countries of Kenya and Ethiopia, the region does not have mountainous areas that remain moist and fertile even when the lowlands dry up. There is no rain for many months. Plants wither, ponds dry up, turning into mud. First the sheep die, then the goats and finally the camels. Once the camels are gone, people will have nothing left. They will have to leave. Somalis are heartbroken by the death of their animals, the collapse of the world they have known since childhood.

Aid organizations, including the United Nations Children's Fund, note that child marriages are on the rise since the drought. In the Horn of Africa and most other regions affected by adverse climate change, hardship and impoverishment are driving families to decide to sell their young daughters.

Climate change is subjecting the Somali pastoralist culture to an unprecedented transformation that requires radical thinking and innovation, says Sarah Khan of UNHCR. She also adds: “I think our answers are mostly conservative. Here there is a need to think outside the box, which, unfortunately, is not yet available. Somaliland's Environment Minister, Shukri Ismail, acknowledges that Somalis have degraded the environment by cutting down trees for charcoal. But the drought does not depend on this, namely, the region suffered the most from it. There was no industry in the country and there is no.

The Somalis do not benefit from the modern industrial economy, do not have access to any technology. For example, Goode Aadan, who is in her 50s, said she had driven a car five times in her life. She has never flown an airplane and does not know anyone who has a car. She has seen people use mobile phones, but she has never held them in her hands herself. These people have absolutely nothing. They are just beggar nomads.

If you think that this is all too far and does not concern you at all, then this is not at all the case. What has affected Somaliland now will, over time, affect other countries as well. If this continues further, many countries will simply die out, only scorched earth will remain. The whole world must come together and start working together to tackle climate change. Otherwise, humanity is doomed.

Unfortunately, so far the problems of Somaliland are simply ignored. International aid organizations help partially only Somalia, while completely ignoring Somaliland. As if they are not there. Such neglect can cost too much - so many people will die. Somalis in IDPs and refugee camps have no other way to survive than to accept government or humanitarian aid, and cities like Hargeisa, with limited infrastructure and available jobs, cannot provide tens of thousands of orphaned pastoralists.

But everything could be completely different. Somaliland has a long, untapped coastline, and with better management, investment and training, former pastoralists could turn to fishing, for example. Others can be taught the skills necessary for urban life, such as becoming a mechanic or an electrician. Government and aid agencies could channel resources into rainwater harvesting by purchasing reservoirs or cisterns to collect rainfall in villages. All these measures will certainly require much more funding from international organizations such as the World Bank. Will help come to this long-suffering land? The question is probably rhetorical …

Climate change is bad for people's lives. Unfortunately, a lot of harm is caused by the person himself. Read our article about for which today they destroyed the ancient artifacts of the aborigines of Australia, which were created 46,000 years ago.