Somaliland | historical region, Africa

Somali , historically , now the area , comprehensive Somalia and Djibouti . The name also refers to the Republic of Somaliland, a self-proclaimed independent country on Horn of Africa .

Historical Region

The region was likely part of the "Land of Punt" known to the ancient Egyptians. Between the 7th and 12th centuries ce , cities like Seylac and Berbera on the Gulf of Aden and Marka , Baraawe and Mogadishu along the Indian Ocean served as ports in a trading area, that Arabic Islamic world called bilad al-Barbar ("Land of the Barbarians"), where Barbar (also Berber, Barbaroi) is a name for the Somali people of the region is based on the descriptions of the residents of the area in the Greek document Periplus Maris Erythraei (1st century v. Chr . ; "Navigating the Erythraean Sea"). These medieval Cities exported gum and resins, ostrich feathers and slaves, and waged war against the Christian Ethiopians of the interior. The Somali, who occupied these areas along with other groups, had begun to embrace Islam in the 7th century, and the religion became firmly entrenched in the centuries that followed. The inhabitants of the cities organized themselves into sultanates like Adal , centered at Seylac, and Ajuran, centered in Mogadishu.

When European nations began carving up Africa among themselves in the late 19th century, France already (from 1862) owned a coal station in Obock near the mouth of the Red Sea , other areas of the north coast were occupied by Egypt, and southern Somaliland recognized the suzerainty of the Sultan of Zanzibar. By the late 1880s, France had expanded its holdings into what is now Djibouti. Great Britain had established a protectorate over the north shore opposite its base in Aden, and Italy controlled the rest of the country. In the north, the Muslim leader Sayyid Maxamed Cabdulle Xasan started a war against the British in 1899 and retained the interior until his death in 1920. The Italians acquired Jubaland in the extreme south after the World War I and closed their Somali possessions with Ethiopia in 1936 to form Italian East Africa . The British gained in World War II control of the Italian zone . 1960 joined the British and the Italian Somaliland to the independent Republic of Somalia. French Somaliland (renamed French Territory of the Afars and Issas in 1967) became independent as the Republic of Djibouti in 1977.

Republic of Somaliland

Following the civil war that began in Somalia in the 1980s and the subsequent overthrow of that country's government in 1991 secured a government opposition group, the Somali National Movement, the region from which the former British Somaliland stock . In May 1991, they announced that the 1960 Union was no longer in force and declared their region an independent state, henceforth known as the Republic of Somaliland. Though not internationally recognized, Somaliland experienced relative stability - a sharp contrast to the civil war that continued to engulf Somalia. With this stability, the Somali government was able to Infrastructure rebuild the region damaged by years of warfare.

There has been tension between Somaliland and since the late 1990s Puntland (an area in northeastern Somalia that is 1998 to autonomous Region explained ). Each contested the other's claim to the Sanaag and Sool regions, and armed clashes erupted regularly.

In 2001, 10 years after Somalia's breakup, Somaliland was still not internationally recognized as an independent country. Understood, the government held a referendum earlier this year, the results of which clearly showed that Somaliland residents supported the region's claims to independence. In 2003, as in the past, the Somali government declined invitations to participate in peace talks aimed at reunifying Somalia, claiming that its independent status prevented it from participating in such discussions.