ISLAMABAD: Somalia was a beautiful and peaceful country in the world, before the civil war. After 1991, the central government was dissolved and the entire situation changed as the warlords started a struggle to capture the resources.

This was stated by the chargé d'affaires embassy of Somalia, Ali Sheikh Abdullahi, during a round table discussion on “Rebuilding Somalis”, organized by the Mission of Unity, Stability and Leadership in Muslims (MUSLIM) Institute, to discuss different aspects in which the international community can play its role in rebuilding Somalia.

MUSLIM Institute is a think tank formed by the welfare organization ‘Tanzeem ul Arifeen’, which is based at the shrine of the eminent saint, Hazrat Sultan Bahoo, and it is funded by the followers of the saint.

Ali Sheikh said that the UN peace keeping missions and international community came in Somalia to help the people who were facing the civil war and drought, but the attacks by the armed groups forced them to leave.

“After that, no one looked back and a severe human crisis was observed in Somalia, when hundreds of thousands of people were hit by the civil war. Somalia is also known in the international community due to the pirates, but the root cause of the piracy is the absence of a central government, lack of education and the economic problems,” he said.

“Illegal fisheries and dumping in the waters of Somalia gave rise to piracy. So, handling the piracy needs the demolition of the root causes, which require providing the people with legal economic opportunities and stopping the illegal fisheries as well,” he said.

“Today, we don’t only need financial assistance; we need infrastructure, educational, political, diplomatic, commercial capacity building support as well. It is very difficult for us to rebuild Somalia ourselves, alone,” he said.

A Dutch expert on Somalia, Dr Marjan Lucas, said that the international community should help the Somali people, but at the end it should be the Somali people who should own their land.

“In Netherlands, there are a large number of Somali communities, and that is why I took interest in Somalia, and worked for it. The 1991 war is the basis of all the problems of Somalia. Somalia faced a long period of dictatorship and then became victimized to the cold war, as well,” she said.

The ambassador of Somalia in Brussels, Ali Said Faqi, through video link, said that the international community should take an active part in building Somalia. People need infrastructure, schools, hospitals, police, national army and other facilities.