KEY POINTS
Somali passports are being issued to Somaliland citizens through a Hargeisa pipeline linked to Somalia's federal system in Mogadishu.
Applicants pay $300 to $400,...
Dr Fundji Benedict-VL25/01/10(lvs-foundation.org)
Genocide denial in the Horn of Africa is no longer confined to the familiar repertoire of silence, euphemism, and diplomatic evasion. It...
In my recent article about Somali-Weyn and Islam-Weyn, I examined how these two ideologies, rooted in ethnonationalism and belief orientation, have been politicized in...
By Michael Rubin
On June 30, 2025, Somaliland President Abdirahman Mohamed Abdillahi Irro arrived in Qatar to meet Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim al-Thani,...
Somaliland was amongst the seventeen African countries that attained their independence in 1960, “The Year of Africa.” A former Italian colony, Somalia merged on...
The independence of British Somaliland (north) came into being on 26 June 1960. Five days later, Italian Somaliland (south) attained independence. Both north and south merged for irredentism agenda – to unify five different Somali regions under one ethnic umbrella. The merger of the two territories faced legal obstruction. Both sides signed no identical unifying law. Italian Somaliland never passed an act of union drafted by British Somaliland. Instead, it passed a different act named Atto di Unione, which was substantially different from British Somaliland's original marriage act. According to Rajagopal and Carrol (1992), the act of union law did not have legal validity in southern Somalia, and the subsequent but different passed Atto de Unione was legally insufficient. Therefore, the declaration of independence was legally invalid.
As President Cirro heads to Washington to tout Somaliland's democratic credentials, a sitting MP asks why the government has jailed dozens of journalists at home — and why the President has never once faced an open press conference.