CIVIL WAR IN SOMALIA

Why is civil war in my country?

Is it destined to be a war zone or is the people are made for war?

Introduction

Every time I check out my social media accounts, media outlets and websites from my country, I find out that group of people were killed somewhere in Somalia. I’m not talking about one, two or even several individuals, who died but sometimes the killings are more than that and sometimes massacres, mainly civilians, happen with countless causalities. To make matters worse, I figured out that the motive behind the death of these people is mainly based on for clan issues. Such kind of issues have been happening for decades in my country and they are still happening across the country. Yet the people who have committed these crimes are still alive and enjoying peacefully. The worst thing is that some of them have been appointed for political positions and still appear in the government offices without even punished for what they have done. May be you are asking yourself why is this happening and what caused this but first of all, let me refer to the origin of these conflicts and how they started in order to illustrate my point of view and highlight these problems in a brief way so that you can grasp the reason behind them.

How and why the civil war had started?

First and foremost, Somali people have accustomed to fight and kill each other for clan-based-interest. Approximately, 4 up to 10 persons are dying every day in the small towns and regions while the capital city of Mogadishu is countless. So how this has started? Back to 1990s, repel groups, warlords and civil society began to confront the Central Government of Somalia and maintained fighting with the government troops by getting assistant from other foreign countries until the central government of Somalia collapsed. Then the collapse of the federal government paved the way for new battles and the war against the government turned into civil war within the militias and repel groups, which finally led to war among the clans.

Though the international communities and our neighbours tried to intervene the situation, the war continued to break out and spread all over the country. Due to these conflicts, Somali people lost thousands of people and the whole country went into chaos and havoc. The battles were mostly based on greed of some clans, or groups. Clans have been fighting for decades for different purposes but these conflicts were common in the nomadic populations such as pastoralists. The Rural conflicts were mainly based on land possession and browsing for livestock. for example, one clan tries to displace other clan for the sake of browsing and land possession, which were common during the rainy seasons such as spring and autumn.

On the other hand, urban conflicts were mainly based on looting of the government’s property and then turned into the formation of armed political groups who were fighting over the control of some towns and the country in general.

In addition to that, battles were sometimes based on grievance among clan militias, where some militias attack the other clan for revenge. Equally, a clan attacks to another clan to displace them and resettle their land. However, these kinds of conflicts have prolonged and caused the deaths of thousands or hundreds of people. These kinds of conflicts have been the most common ones in the overall country of Somalia, and even frequently happen both in the urban and rural areas. Religious battles against the federal government of Somalia and the foreign troops followed to the civil war, which made the whole situation to get worse up until now, even though these civil wars are not ended yet, they are less common compared to the religious fights.

So, if you understood why and how these civil wars started, you can ask me what kind of effects that these conflicts have on the country, in particular, to the live of the Somali people or What are the results of these conflicts and battles in Somalia? Let me offer you the main results or effects that the war has brought to my country and how my people have been suffering in those days.

The main results of the civil war

In general, after 25 years of war and lack of government, the country has lost its existence in the region and internationally. international communities included the list of the most dangerous and corrupted territory all over the world. Furthermore, many towns were burnt to the ground and some of them demolished by the bullets and mortars. The core infrastructure such as roads, public buildings (hospitals, universities, schools and government residences) were destroyed. The whole economy, education and overall systems of the country have collapsed.

More than that, political systems have been corrupted and administrative roles were violated. An approach called 4.5 (a clan-based power-sharing) has dominated all over the country’s critical areas such as employment, administrative positions (parliament, ministry and governance), elections, courts, education system, and even businesses.

In addition to that, thousands of people lost their lives and other millions of civilians are now facing calamities such as poverty and hunger. The war is still going on in some parties of the country and every new day, new families are going to lose their beloved ones. Whenever I listen a radio or watch a TV, I hear that someone or group of people were killed somewhere in the country but the sad party is that those people died without purpose and meaningless and no one was arrested for their death, let alone of getting justice for their beloveds.

Civil war has destroyed the future of our society in general, specially our youth. Elders particularly men, have been fueling the conflicts in decades, and fueling now. In fact, we are native citizens called Somalis. We belong to one country, one land, and one race. We don’t have empires, we don’t have different races, we share one color (black), one language (Somali), and more than that we share one religion “Islam”.

Unfortunately, we fight and kill each other as clans and sub-clans. We sacrifice our lives to the clan and warlords.  We die them, we defend them while warlords and repel groups enjoy the fruits and achieve their political interests and implement their hidden agendas without even acknowledging that we exist.  Then we fail to sacrifice our lives when it comes to our nation, people, and even our religion.

We see each other as enemies live together, and we welcome the enemy outside to use them as helpers when we are fighting with another clan, group or even a group in our clan but we forget that this enemy will eventually destroy us when we lose our brothers and sisters.

Conclusion

In conclusion, all these conflicts such as civil war, tribalism, racism and hatred have destroyed our country and our society. The blood of beloveds continues to spell and we are the only ones who will get the fruits of all these tribulations. To kill each other or live a peaceful life is our choice and we have to remember that no clan will take over another or will take the control of this land and this country. Even if they are close to do so, the enemy outside will overtake them since there won’t be any one will support them after they killed their brothers and sisters. The politics and the browsing of livestock will never end but we are the ones who will leave them in this world.

 

In a nutshell:

Allah will never change the life of people unless they change their behaviour and themselves. Killing people is the greatest sin after “shirk” and the reality is that every time you kill someone, you killed a part of yourself”. Isn’t it good for us to stop this, and safe our lives from the hellfire?

 "killing begets more killings"

N.B: all these ideas are my own and no one will be responsible for sharing them.

Abdikafi Mohamud
Bachelor of science in Banking and finance