HARGEISA: Abdi Ibrahim lost most of his loved ones in 1988 when government bombers attacked Hargeisa, at the time just another city flattened by Somalia’s civil war.
Memories of that attack remain raw, not just because tens of thousands were killed but because the massacre deepened a fierce desire for separate nationhood among the people of Somaliland, the northeast region of Somalia.
Somaliland — a former British protectorate — unilaterally declared independence in 1991, a decade after rebels took up arms against Somali military ruler Mohamed Siad Barre.
The anger that fed that breakaway drive more than a decade ago still smoulders in the semi-desert territory, which is pushing to become the next African country to win nationhood after Eritrea, which split from Ethiopia in 1993.
“I lost three of my children and 162 ... family members during the massacre,” Ibrahim, 52, said, in Hargeisa, the capital of Somaliland.
“Almost everybody was affected. Dead bodies littered the city. Thousands were killed by the blasts as well as by trigger-happy soldiers.”
Many who survived the onslaught were crippled by hundreds of thousands of landmines placed by soldiers targeting civilians trying to flee to nearby Ethiopia.
Although it has not been recognized internationally, Somaliland is flourishing compared to the rest of chaotic Somalia, buoyed by the economic stimulus provided by the arrival of thousands of former refugees attracted by its stability.
Last month, the Horn of Africa territory held peaceful parliamentary elections, its third polls since declaring independence from the rest of Somalia in 1991.
Somaliland officials say the polls, the enclave’s stability, the disarmament of 50,000 gunmen and efforts at good governance show the territory should be a nation in its own right.
Somaliland’s bid for recognition is widely resisted around Africa because of a longstanding preference for leaving old colonial borders intact to discourage secessionist movements.
The charter of the pan-continental African Union requires that colonial-era borders be left untouched unless all parties involved negotiate all changes.—Reuters
