Ingmar Björn Nolting – Somaliland « burn magazine

The Horn of Africa is regarded as one of the continent’s most war-torn regions. Somalia in particular crashed into an ever deeper chaos of civil war and terror after the disempowerment of the Somali dictator Siad Barre in 1991. There is still no end in sight. Despite all resistance, however, an island of peaceful coexistence emerged in the north of the country. Somaliland. The borders of Somaliland go back to the area of the former British protectorate, which united with Italian-Somaliland to Somalia in 1960. Under the dictatorship of Barre, who seized power through a putsch in 1969, the inhabitants of the north felt increasingly deprived. The resulting fights of the guerilla group “Somaliland National Movement” against the Barre regime culminated in the overthrow of the Barre regime, the adoption of a declaration of independence and the founding of the Republic of Somaliland on 18 May 1991.