Statement by Somaliland Concern Group
As you are aware of Laascaanood is located in the Sool Region of Somaliland, it is fact that in the last decade’s Somaliland government inputted enormous effort to develop the region including adequate health centers, clean water, educational institutions, and so on and so forth. However, during the last 15 years Somaliland administering in Laascaanood town, there were criminal assassinations and organized offenders killed over 60 persons.
According to the Somaliland government, many killers captured and charged, whereas some other criminals are still missing. It is true that it was the government’s duty to bring all those organized crimes in front of justice. However, some emerging information says that organized criminals were getting support from anti-Somaliland groups led by Islamic extremists as well as Somali politicians.
The Somaliland government highlighted that there were not sufficient support security provisions for every human person who lives in the city. These ongoing crime activities created chaos and increased public concern questioning why are killers chasing after the elite in the city. Lastly, when on December 26, 2022, Abdifatah Abdillahi (Hadrawi Sangub) was murdered in LasAnod, extremists organized a civilian demonstration, while local police and citizens crashed in the streets and more people died. The police were trying to settle the situation and convince the people why the Somaliland officers are being killed, while the extremists were targeting to create instability and accuse the assassinations of the Somaliland government, which was really a baseless accusation.
When the instability and conflict increased, the Somaliland government sent a delegation led by the Interior Minister to the peace of the Region and they tried to control the conflict and had several meetings with local communities. The local citizens requested that the Somaliland government should accept that all the Dhulbahante traditional elders to come in LasAnod and have a conference. The Somaliland government accepted and did not oppose the conference, but on the contrary, welcomed the elders and take part in their security and well-being.
The conference was held and after some days it was closed with an unfortunate decision from traditional elders who announced; Somaliland should entirely leave from Sool Region. On the other hand, the traditional elders came with weapons, military forces, and heavy artillery. Immediately after that, the organized militants attacked Hamdi Hotel, where Somaliland government officials are residing and the security staff of the Ministers defended unfortunately 15 security men died in the ground battle along with much wounded staff. After that, the Somaliland government decided to withdraw its officers and supporters from their previous base of Tukaraq as well as inside LasAnod Town in order to mitigate the disasters.
The Somaliland government officers tried several times to liaise with a 33 committee made by the Dhulbahante traditional elders in order to prevent continuous bloody conflict. Nevertheless, Puntland forces, Islamic militants, Highly Somali Police Officers, and many different groups from Somalia engaged and joined the Sool conflict-backed conflict and thereafter LasAnod become a fighting battleground between Somaliland forces and organized Somali forces.
No doubt, that the Somaliland government did many steps to ensure the peace and stability of LasAnod town, unfortunately, there were external organized plans led by Somali politicians
including former Somali Federal Government President (Farmajo), Former Puntland President (Abdiweli Gas), Kenya Member of Parliament (Farah Maalim), and many other Somali politicians.
The main reason that those politicians are destabilizing Sool Region is to ensure not recognized Somaliland by the international community and to establish a regional state under Somali Federal Government for the benefit of the Somali elections. Though they are ignoring that the most populated clan of the Sool & Sanaag regions is the Isak clan. In addition to that, the Sanaag region, which has the longest see border in Somaliland is fully situated by Isak clan except for Lasqoray of where Warsangeliclan resides.
When the conflict in the Sool region become between different militants including all the above-mentioned groups and Somaliland forces, there happens repeated several huge ground battles and still continuous while the Somaliland President explores that his government always preserves a ceasefire and did not take a single attack but defense. There were many efforts from the regional leaders including Somali Federal Government’s current President, Ethiopia Government, Djibouti government. However, Sool traditional elders refused every attempt carried out by the East African governments.
Furtherly, they accused Djibouti President Ismail Omer Gelle is a part of the war which is a baseless and meaningless accusation. President Gelle invested incredible effort and support to create peace and stability in Somali Regions for the last 30 years; he deserves to reward Nobel Peace Prize for only Somali issues, instead of accusing unfounded allegations.
The Partial engagement of the International Partners:
The international community engaged in the Sool conflict in order to mediate but they are lacking reliable truthful information from the ground, for that reason, they may be miss leaded and issue a partial decision. The international partners obtain their arguments from the Somaliland Government, the Leader of Somaliland Opposition Parties, and Traditional Leaders of Sool Region.
However, they did not have the chance to send a fact-finding delegation to Somaliland in order to collect reliable information about the conflict. There are also some of Somaliland opposition leaders who are intended to ensure that elections should take place in Somaliland,to do so they took every step to criticize the current Somaliland government leader. At last, the international partners had a telephone conference meeting with the Somaliland government (President) and thereafter issued a communique.
We, as Somaliland Concern Group, who are based in Hageisa City, were following every step about the Sool conflict; we also respect international partners concern in relation with human casualty caused by the unnecessary war in LasAnod.We also fully agreed that many people were displaced including elders, children and women. We do agree that all public service institutions were shut down.
However, Somaliland is an independent country so far (defecto) and it has been attacked by organized criminal militants led by Puntland Islamic extremists and some of Somali politicians aimed to destabilize the region and we are asking to international community, regional actors and Arab countries to support Somaliland government ensuring peace and stability in Somaliland as well as the region.
Somaliland didn’t get support from regional actors, which we believe it’s obligatory to them, because this can lead huge instability to the East African countries including Ethiopia and Kenya, where recently Islamic extremists are planning to win over all the mountains surrounding Sool region and they have already takeover some of Puntland regions including Bosaso town where they control and take tax. We thank international community and every person who invested time and effort to contribute restoring peace and stability in Sool region and however we do respect that every decision should be based on true and factual information.
We are concluding to underline that LasAnod was part of the Somaliland region since 1960 when we obtained independence from British Colony. We believe that as long as colonial borders are recognized, Somaliland and East African borders are included, unless we put a question mark on all of them.The Somaliland government was a democratic elected government practicing free and fair elections for the last 25 years and inputted a tangible effort and support to the regional security and co-operating countries with sustaining peace and development, therefore, the neighboring countries should understand Helping Somaliland is also contributing the peace in the region.
Yours Truly,
Mohamed Mohamoud Essa
Chairperson, Somaliland Concern Group
Contact: Concerngroup@gmail.com/ telephone : 00252634317770
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