The Horn of Africa has been a part of home for Somalians since ancient times, almost as old as the clan wars that split the region into III.
Somaliland, Puntland and Somalia which collapsed into anarchy in *91 because of the outs of the Barre regime which led to further turmoil and factional fighting, resulting in Somalis lack of a stable government.
Leaving places like the capital, Mogadishu to be preyed on by Warlords that fought for ownership of the city as tribal property.
Intense war broke through the lands, as the country fell to famine and drought leading a majority of the natives to flee to neighbouring Ethiopia and Kenya. Those who remained were quickly becoming casualties of war, having their lives ripped off their haven, inhumanly, bringing the situation under international watch.
UN and US interventions were eminent during this period, as military approaches were declared for peacekeeping missions to assist the mass starvation of the people of Somalia, for nation building reconstructs, which I feel encouraged a retaliation from local warlords that continued to threaten the security of these organisations as well as the people calling for help.
The UNs rules of engagement was clouded by encounters with Somali gunmen, unidentified at the time, that escalated in every encounter. Forcing more and more immigrants to flee the country. The help that was provided by foreign aid was mainly of food supply but issues around protection and the social safety and security of people was not addressed, causing many casualties, on journeys to accessing this aid.
Rumours of intermediate agendas as to why troops were deployed to points of conflict to counter the chaos between the civilians and the extremist was still gradual, as more and more Western Troops were deployed to these regions.
Carrying on till the early 2000s , Where a form of calm was restored but no form of a stable government had yet claimed the state as an autonomy, that at least didn’t soon fall from power.
Other transitional governments (TNG) in Arta, Djibouti, under auspices of the IGAD that seemed to be a good 14th attempt at governance headed by Abdullah Yusuf with a 275 member parliament and some emerging Islamic courts but because of unrestful fears of an invading Ethiopia or Kenyan military, a continued assault by local warlords against Western control in the country was lead.
Efforts to restore a central authority since the millennia finally made substantial progress, with the swearing in of a formal parliament in more than 20 years, and the holding of the first presidential election since 1967, where pro-government forces made key advances against Al-Shabab militants and allied Al- Qaeda forces. Further interventions from NATO and other close corporations, acted to control the outbreak of a civil war on the Somalian coast, driving Pirates off of the seaboards from illegal trading.
However this continuous fighting for land and resource, religion and belief between different facets in a modern day warfare, aroused by international interventions and national inventions of governments for order, result only in the displacement of civilians and mass loss of lives.
Therefore migration from Somalia has been gradually growing as the men and women together with their children seek refuge in a better life from other countries around the world, stricken by a terrorized Afrika and her extortion, by Western influences which have created a battleground of their homes.
According to the UN, “over a million people, many of them displaced persons — face acute food insecurity and about 120,000 Somalis have been newly displaced since the beginning of 2014…Tens of thousands of displaced people remain in dire conditions in Mogadishu and are subjected to evictions, sexual violence, and clan-based discrimination at the hands of government forces, allied militia, and private individuals…”
In most cases how her diaspora winds up in the capital city of the South is a lesser evil really, where you see thousands of foreign people cornered from the city of Mogadishu to Struben and Paul Kruger — queuing at the department of home affairs in Pretoria for belonging. Every day and morning waiting for acceptance until business day end, chasing migration laws and expiring permits. Some facing deportation and others escaping xenophobic attacks that are viscously and continuously carried out by South African nationals.
The site is hard to pass by without thinking of how it must feel like to be trapped in between two countries as a refugee on one hand and an illegal immigrant in Africa on the other — in Africa!? Let alone to be seen as criminal for your beliefs.
It’s never easy to leave your home in any case, to seek betterment for your life but to leave it in turmoil and to be ending up under the fiery heat from the scorching sun after standing the whole day... must be like losing yourself in trying to find peace that defines you in a community.
The site is unbelievably filled with informal settlers and vendors, that have even opened a marketplace for refreshments, where Locals trade and sell the little bit of hope we go looking for, from these government walls.
The people there sometimes when I make my way back home through the same street, look like they have been waiting all their lives for services that turn you back just as you are about to find closure, or a new home.
On weekends you can see bags that que the long lines across Struben for Monday.
Vacant without any people standing with them, but protected by a few vendors and people that seem like their working shifts.
A phenomenal display of patience and no crime, of understanding that the system doesn’t care about us whom have been here the whole week waiting for service.
Better the evil we know I guess, if your country is under siege.
I dare not to stop and ask one of the people, ' where they come from and where they are going ' because I know where they have been.
What is the Department of home affairs doing to control this unhealthy assembly outside their doors. Do you see the discrimination when you pass by and am I supposed to turn the blind eye because of my citizenship.
Somalia… what happens to her and other countries that are spiralling out of control, how long before my home is taken from my comfort zone.
Can elected President Mohamed Abdullahi Mohammed reunite a country divided and scattered all over the continents, — repatriate his people back to her peninsula or is the horn of Afrika dehorned .
