Somalia: An Overview of the Historical and Current Situation

Abstract

In Somalia as in many other conflict ravaged societies, “history is deadly ammunition in today’s political wars.” In that respect, to comprehend the depth of apparently unsolvable and protracted crisis in Somalia, it is essential to identify and analyse the underlying causes of these predicaments that have been unfolding since the colonial era. Additionally, understanding the causes and intricacies of the current political turmoil is also necessary for finding the way to end this madness, as other analysts rightly acknowledged with reference to the Somali conflict “an understanding of what went wrong is indispensable to the search for solutions to the president predicament.” In that respect, this paper provides some background information and analysis on the key events leading up to the complete collapse of the Somali State in 1991 and its devastating aftermath. Furthermore, this paper examines human rights records of subsequent Somali governments as well as non-state actors. Finally, it highlights and studies the challenges and problems associated with attempts to reconstitute collapsed state institutions.