Somalis in the self-declared state of Somaliland, northwestern Somalia, will be asked on 31 May to vote on a new constitution which includes an article on territorial independence. Somaliland independence was unilaterally declared in May 1991, but has never received international recognition. The declaration followed the collapse of Muhammad Siyad Barre's military dictatorship, which had pursued brutal policies in the north during the civil war of the 1980s. During a recent visit to the capit...read more
Somalis in the self-declared state of Somaliland, northwestern Somalia, will be asked on 31 May to vote on a new constitution which includes an article on territorial independence. Somaliland independence was unilaterally declared in May 1991, but has never received international recognition. The declaration followed the collapse of Muhammad Siyad Barre's military dictatorship, which had pursued brutal policies in the north during the civil war of the 1980s. During a recent visit to the capital, Hargeysa, IRIN spoke to Somaliland President Muhammad Ibrahim Egal about independence, and the issue of past atrocities. A number of sites discovered in 1997 were identified by an international forensic team as having characteristics of mass graves, but no further investigation followed.