33 Countries of Origin’ Profiles

3 SOMALIA The Dir clan populates northern Somalia and includes subgroups such as the Akisho, Gurgure, Surre, Issa, Barsuug, and the Biimaal. The Biimal live in the south of the country, as well as in Ethiopia, Djibouti, and Kenya. The Darod clan inhabits the autonomous region of Puntland, in the north, which has its own President and administration system. The Darod are suspicious of the southern clans. The Digil Rahanweyn are part of the larger Rahanweyn clan and have seven subgroups including the Garre, Geledi, Tunni, Bagadi, and Jiida, comprising mainly of coastal and farming communities. The Mirifle Rahanweyn clan engages primarily in pastoralism and agriculture in fertile areas of the country. They are divided into 21 sub-clans and speak a particular version of the Somali language known as ‘maay maay’. Inter-clan rivalries are extremely common in Somalia. The main clans are suspicious of each other and distrust political power. In Somalia there are also small communities of Arabs, Indians and Pakistanis who work as shopkeepers, and Italians involved in teaching and banana production. There are also immigrants from Ethiopia and other Bantu-speaking communities 5 . BELIEF: Islam . The vast majority of Somalis are Sunni and of the Shafi’i school of Islamic jurisprudence 6 . Belief in the Evil Eye is widespread - Somalis think that a person can pass on the Evil Eye to another by praising that person, and thus causing them harm or illness 7 . POLITICAL SITUATION: Since the 1980 ’ s Somalia has gone through a civil war, state collapse, clan factionalism in the 1990s, culminating in globalized ideological conflict in the 2000 ’s 8 . After the fall of President Barre’s government in 1991, clan-based warlords and their militias began fighting for power in Mogadishu. The Somali National Movement (SNM), brought together traditional clan elders and fought for the secession state of Somaliland, which took place in 1991. In 1998, clan leaders in the north-east region of Somalia formed the semi- autonomous state of Puntland. Although there have been tensions over borders, Puntland and Somaliland have enjoyed relative stability; on the other hand, in Mogadishu and in areas in the south and centre of the country, different warlords have continued to fight amongst each other for power and control. In 2006, the Islamic Courts Union (ICU), a group of Sharia courts, took control of Mogadishu and large parts of the southern region. A few months later, the ICU was defeated by the Transitional Federal Government backed by the African Union & several other African 5 http://www.worldatlas.com/about.htm & http://www.refworld.org/pdfid/4b29f5e82.pdf 6 https://rlp.hds.harvard.edu/faq/islam-somalia 7 https://ethnomed.org/culture/somali/somali-cultural-profile#section -2 8 http://www.c-r.org/downloads/Accord%2021_3Endless%20war_a%20brief%20history_2010_ENG.pdf