Horn Of Africa Research Articles

Citizens, Subjects, Enemies: The First World War and Citizenship Policies in the Italian Colonies

There are few research fields in European history that have received as much scholarly attention over the last few years as citizenship and the First World War. While this is also true for the Italian case, there is still a striking absence of research on citizenship laws in the colonial territories under Italian sovereignty. The present article addresses this gap and challenges the long-established assumption – due to an all too narrow focus on the historical military framework – that the First World War did not really affect the colonies of the Kingdom of Italy. An investigation of how the legal status of the colonial population – especially in Eritrea, on the one hand, and in Tripolitania and Cyrenaica, on the other – was regulated, but also contested, claimed and negotiated, both during the conflict and in its immediate aftermath, reveals that a global event like the First World War actually had a significant impact on the Italian territories in the Horn of Africa and in North Africa. To illustrate this point, the article adopts an approach based on local players in the colonies rather than on legislators or policymakers in the metropole. Contemporary sources collected from several different archives are used to retrace personal stories and administrative processes which reveal important aspects in the story not only of Italian colonialism but of the Italian state in general. Citizenship in the Italian territories in Africa, as much as in other European colonies, was marked by the prejudicial concept of the backwardness of Africans, who were thus excluded from metropolitan citizenship. Beyond that, the article highlights utilitarianism as a concept that can help us to understand how Italy dealt with the inhabitants of its colonies during the First World War.

RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN NATIONAL IDENTITY AND EXTERNAL INFLUENCES IN ARCHITECTURE AND ART (EXAMPLE OF CHINA, ALGERIA AND LIBYA)

The topic of the research is devoted to the combination of national traditions and external borrowings in the architecture and art of the cultures of North Africa and the Far East. On the example of the historical sites of Shaanxi province and the Dunhuang cave temple complex in China, it is possible to trace how borrowed architectural and artistic traditions were gradually modified in local conditions. On the example of Shaanxi province, it can be noted how the construction of a type of multi-tiered Buddhist pagoda borrowed from India gradually came to naught, instead, in the Late Dynastic periods, the construction of temples of traditional Chinese religions / philosophical teachings – Taoism and Confucianism – was intensified. Examples of ancient mosques in Xi'an, the capital of Shaanxi province, whose appearance and decorative decoration are identical to temples of traditional Chinese religions are illustrative. 
 A study of the architecture of Northeast Africa (the so-called Maghreb region) showed that the Maghreb tower-type minaret was the most resistant to changes and external borrowings: it is even found in mosques of the Ottoman period. The multiculturalism of Libya has led to the fact that mosques of fundamentally different types are simultaneously present within the country, each of which embodies the architectural preferences of a certain ethnic group of the population and is adapted to the natural and climatic conditions of a particular region. The same situation is observed in the case of mosques in Algeria.
 The greatest impact of local traditions on the transformation of external borrowing is observed in China. In Algeria and Libya, more remote regions were the most protected from external influences, on the other hand, the phenomenon of multiculturalism is observed in the coastal territories.

The interplay of China and Gulf countries in third-party market dynamics: an asymmetric competition perspective on the Belt and Road Initiative

China’s recent shift in the Belt and Road Initiatives (BRI) focusses on engaging middle powers in the Global South for joint development of commercially viable projects in third countries. Among these are the oil-rich Gulf heavyweights seen as critical partners and supporters of the BRI. Yet, instances of competition or conflict of interests with Beijing are not uncommon. Applying the asymmetric competition theory, this study compares Sino-Emirati interactions in maritime infrastructure in the Horn of Africa with Sino-Saudi cooperation in China-Pakistan Economic Corridor. We find that Gulf heavyweights can leverage their asymmetric advantages to affect the interaction patterns with greater powers. By distributing resources disproportionally, the medium Southern powers can strive to partially establish structural power, enabling them to get dis-embedded from the single cooperation framework dominated by a great power. In the case of seemingly harmonious third-party collaboration, a dynamic analytical perspective reveals that early embedding these actors might lay the groundwork for the creation of asymmetric advantages which can be leveraged later.

A regional stocktake of maize yield vulnerability to droughts in the Horn of Africa.

Climate projections in sub-Saharan Africa predict increased frequency of droughts with parallel impacts on crop yield. The Horn of Africa is among the most vulnerable regions in Africa to these changes because agriculture in general andmaize productionin particularly is highly climate driven, and rain-fed. Current research approaches have mostly focused on the climatic and biophysical drivers of crop yield without including the socio-economic drivers of crop yield. This study fills this gap by investigating the vulnerability of maize yield in the Horn of Africa to climate and socio-economic indicators. The hypothesis is that there is an inverse relationship between vulnerability and adaptive capacity. The vulnerability index is a composite index that integrates sensitivity, exposure, and adaptive capacity sub-indices. Maize yield data to compute the sensitivity index were collected from FAOSTAT, precipitation data to compute the exposure index were collected from the Climate Research Unit (CRU), and the data for the proxies of adaptive capacity were collected from the readiness index database on figshare. From the results, Somalia records the highest vulnerability index of 1.15, followed by Ethiopia with a vulnerability index of 0.61. Kenya records the lowest vulnerability index of 0.33. Also, there is a positive relationship between the vulnerability, sensitivity, and the exposure indices and an inverse relationship between the vulnerability index and the adaptive capacity index. The high vulnerability index recorded in Somalia is accentuated by a low adaptive capacity index of 0.44 that is anchored on low literacy and high poverty rates. As Somalia records the lowest adaptive capacity index of 0.44, Ethiopia and Kenya record 0.91 and 0.99 respectively. This study has shown that to better understand vulnerability, a shift from the old paradigm that focuses on the climatic variables to integrating socio-economic variables or proxies of adaptive capacity whichenhances ourunderstanding ofvulnerability. Though leveraging the benefits of climatic and non-climatic variables is important, the challenge so far has been on how to integrate these in the same model; a challenge this work has succinctly overcome by integrating adaptive capacity in the vulnerability equation.

Ethnomedicinal uses, phytochemistry, pharmacology and toxicological aspects of genus Wendlandia: an overview

The genus Wendlandia includes around 70 species and is native to southeast Asia, northeast Africa, China, Australia, and Turkey. Mnay plant species of this genus have ethnomedicinal properties, which are used to deal various health complications, including dysentery, severe fever, cough, diabetes, hypertension, hyperlipidemia, constipation, and inflammation. This review sought to summarize details on the ethnomedicinal uses, phytochemical composition, safety aspects, and toxicology of Wendlandia species. Additionally, it covered the nomenclature, distribution, taxonomy, and botanical characteristics of this genus. Several electronic databases were used to retrieve the information, including Google Scholar, PubMed, Web of Science, Scopus, Science Direct, and Springer Link. The Plant List (www.theplantlist.org) was used for taxonomical authentications. SciFinder and PubChem were utilized for the verification of chemical structures and IUPAC (International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry) name of the compounds. Numerous examinations of chemical constituents of the Wendlandia genus have identified approximately 60 essential plant compounds, such as iridoid glycosides, flavonoids, flavonoid glycosides, carotenoids, and triterpenes. Various research studies have showcased the therapeutic potential of Wendlandia species, highlighting their abilities in treating diabetes, combating oxidation, reducing inflammation, fighting microbes, lowering blood pressure, and potentially hindering cancer growth. The significance of Wendlandia in traditional medicine systems and its role as a valuable origin of impactful natural compounds are evident. This review provided scientific basis for future endeavors, including chemical investigations into already studied species and other less studied species of Wendlandia for finding future lead compounds. J. Bangladesh Acad. Sci. 47(2); 139-154: December 2023

Preexposure prophylaxis availability among health facilities participating in the global International epidemiology Databases to Evaluate AIDS (IeDEA) consortium.

While recognized as a key HIV prevention strategy, preexposure prophylaxis (PrEP) availability and accessibility are not well documented globally. We aimed to describe PrEP drug registration status and the availability of PrEP services across HIV care sites participating in the International epidemiology Databases to Evaluate AIDS (IeDEA) research consortium. We used country-level PrEP drug registration status from the AIDS Vaccine Advocacy Coalition and data from IeDEA surveys conducted in 2014, 2017 and 2020 among participating HIV clinics in seven global regions. We used descriptive statistics to assess PrEP availability across IeDEA sites serving adult patients in 2020 and examined trends in PrEP availability among sites that responded to all three surveys. Of 199 sites that completed the 2020 survey, PrEP was available in 161 (81%). PrEP availability was highest at sites in North America (29/30; 97%) and East Africa (70/74; 95%) and lowest at sites in Central (10/20; 50%) and West Africa (1/6; 17%). PrEP availability was higher among sites in countries where PrEP was officially registered (146/161; 91%) than where it was not (14/32; 44%). Availability was higher at health centers (109/120; 90%) and district hospitals (14/16; 88%) compared to regional/teaching hospitals (36/63). Among the 94 sites that responded to all three surveys, PrEP availability increased from 47% in 2014 to 60% in 2017 and 76% in 2020. PrEP availability has substantially increased since 2014 and is now available at most IeDEA sites. However, PrEP service provision varies markedly across global regions.

The archaeology of pleasure: Evidence for the use of tobacco at Old Dongola in Northern Sudan (16th–19th centuries AD)

This paper presents the first evidence of tobacco seeds (Nicotiana tabacum L.) from northeastern Africa. The evidence comes from Old Dongola, the northern city-state of the Funj Kingdom in Sudan (16th–19th centuries AD). Old Dongola served as a hub for communication and a point of departure for caravans. Since 2018, we carried out large-scale systematic archaeobotanical sampling at the citadel of Old Dongola. We floated sediment samples of 1–20 L to recover botanical remains, which we later processed and identified in the archaeobotany laboratory of the University of Tübingen, Germany, based on anatomical and morphological comparisons with modern seeds from the reference collection. The team recovered a wide variety of economically important plants from this regional capital. Here we present the earliest archaeobotanical evidence for tobacco in Sudan dating to the middle of the 17th century. This research supports the hypothesis that tobacco cultivation in Sudanese Nubia began by the early part of the Funj/Ottoman period. While these results highlight the use of tobacco at Old Dongola, the pathways for the introduction of tobacco into Sudan are poorly documented, and the exact timing of the introduction and cultivation in Sudan remains a subject of lively debate.

The implications of Ethiopia’s foreign policy dynamics towards the Horn of Africa since 1991

The implications of Ethiopia’s foreign policy dynamics towards the Horn of Africa since 1991

Abdullah HAMIDADDIN (Editor), The Huthi Movement in Yemen: Ideology, Ambition, and Security in the Arab Gulf (London, Bloomsbury Publishing, 2023)

Abdullah Hamidaddin edited a comprehensive study published by Bloomsbury in cooperation with King Faisal Research and Islamic Studies. The book provides outstanding research on the Huthi movement including sections on its ideology, belief system; and role in reconfiguring one of the oldest and strongest culture and history in the region. The current state of the Yemeni government, that is the divided and insecure rule of country since the Arab revolts in 2011 poses military and political threats to the Arab Gulf States and the Horn of Africa. Yemen hosts paramilitary groups like the Huthis and Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula along with unorganized groups belonging to Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) as well as military groups with links to the Southern secessionists. Yemen is a failed state that poses serious insecurities for its citizens and for other states in the region. The underlining socio-economic problems of Yemen in terms of lack of economic activities, food insecurity, and the security of civilians are closely related with the ongoing proxy war between Saudi Arabia and Iran; the military intervention led by Saudi Arabia since 2015; the internal conflict among three major groups including Huthis, the Central government and the Southern secessionists. Amid all these overlapping elements of the conflict, the nature of the Huthi movement and how it has evolved to be major actor in Yemen require further attention.

Bringing climate forecasts down to earth

Climate change is causing shifts in historical weather patterns in the Horn of Africa, negatively affecting agriculture and pastoralism across the region. Researchers in the DOWN2EARTH project are developing new models and tools that will deliver information to governments, organizations, and people on the ground, helping them adapt to the impacts of climate change, as Professor Michael Singer explains.

“There’s a Great Human Story to be Told”: The Music and Practices of Ostinato Records - Various Artists. Sweet As Broken Dates: Lost Somali Tapes from the Horn of Africa. 2017. Ostinato Records OSTCD003. Compiled by Vik Sohonie and Nicolas Sheikholeslami. Digitized by Nicolas Sheikholeslami. Mastered by Michael Graves. CD, 16 tracks, 86 minutes. - Groupe RTD. The Dancing Devils

“There’s a Great Human Story to be Told”: The Music and Practices of Ostinato Records - Various Artists. Sweet As Broken Dates: Lost Somali Tapes from the Horn of Africa. 2017. Ostinato Records OSTCD003. Compiled by Vik Sohonie and Nicolas Sheikholeslami. Digitized by Nicolas Sheikholeslami. Mastered by Michael Graves. CD, 16 tracks, 86 minutes. - Groupe RTD. The Dancing Devils

An Assessment of the Partition and Scramble of Africa and the Effect of Slave Trade in the Continent

The scramble and Partition of African countries began in earnest with the Berlin Conference of 1884-1885, and this was the cause of the most of Africa’s borders today. The conference was called by German Chancellor Bismarck to settle how European countries would claim colonial land in Africa and to avoid a war among European nations over African territory. All the major European States were invited to the conference which includes the Germany, France, Great Britain, Netherlands, Belgium, Portugal, and Spain were all considered to have a future role in the imperial partition of Africa. The United States was invited because of its interest in Liberia but did not attend the conference because it had no desire to build a colonial empire in Africa. Also invited were Austria–Hungary, Sweden–Norway, Denmark, Italy, Turkey, and Russia who all were considered minor players in the quest for colonizing Africa, though Italy has claim some colonial possessions in Northeast Africa. Most notably there were no Africans present at that conference, nor were any Europeans present to ensure that native Africans had any say in the proceedings. This paper has adopted secondary source of data in the process of data collection. The findings of the paper have revealed that partition in Africa has led to emergence of colonialism, slave trade and other related contemporary imbalance that led to for present African underdevelopment. The paper recommended that African countries needs to be allowed to run its affairs as an independent sovereign countries to manage both their mineral and human resource to compete with every continent of the world interterms of development dynamism and African countries should develop an approach that will help them to fight social menace of poverty, corruption, insecurity and unemployment.

Determinants of adverse management outcomes of blunt abdominal trauma patients operated at a referral hospital in southern Ethiopia: a retrospective record review

BackgroundAbdominal trauma is one of the common reasons for emergency visits yet there is paucity of data about the subject in the horn of Africa. This study was aimed at determining the determinants of adverse management outcomes of blunt abdominal trauma among operated patients at Wolaita Sodo University Teaching and Referral Hospital, Ethiopia.MethodsThis was a three-year retrospective review conducted among 128 patient records selected using purposive sampling in which all records for the patients operated for a diagnosis of blunt abdominal trauma during the study period were included. A pretested checklist was used to extract the data relating to adverse outcomes and characteristics of the patients. A descriptive analysis followed by logistic regression was done.ResultsOf the 128 patients, adverse management outcomes related to blunt abdominal trauma occurred in 52%. Patients residing in rural areas (adjusted odds ratio 3.23, 95% confidence interval: 1.13–9.24) and those with tachycardia, (adjusted odds ratio = 3.25, 95% confidence interval: 1.19–8.83) or tachypnea (adjusted odds ratio 3.25, 95% confidence interval: 1.19–8.83) were more likely to have adverse management outcomes.ConclusionAdverse management outcomes are relatively high and associated with rural residence and deranged vital signs (tachycardia and tachypnea). Close monitoring targeting patients from rural residence and those presenting with tachycardia and tachypnea is recommended.

Somaliland i Tajwan – współpraca państw nieuznawanych w cieniu rozgrywki geopolitycznej mocarstw w Rogu Afryki

SOMALILAND AND TAIWAN – THE COOPERATION OF UNRECOGNIZED COUNTRIES IN THE SHADOW OF THE GEOPOLITICAL GAME OF SUPERPOWERS IN THE HORN OF AFRICA Separated by thousands of kilometers and very different cultures, histories, and economies, Taiwan and Somaliland appear to have little in common. Like Taiwan, Somaliland was created in the aftermath of a civil war. The consequences of those conflicts continue to shape the political status of both countries. Since the declaration of independence from Somalia in 1991, Hargeisa, like Taipei, has been trying to secure its existence, because both states cannot count on international recognition, and their independence is contested by the states from which they seceded. Despite being forced to exist on the periphery of the international community, both de facto states still try to be active participants in global affairs. Relations between unrecognized states are also an element of the game between the main players in this region, the US and China. Washington, concerned about Beijing’s political and economic expansion in the Horn of Africa, is trying to limit it, and one of the elements of this policy is indirect support for the strategically located Somaliland through its ally from Taipei.

Anatomical Study in Some Species of Tamarix in Iran

The genus Tamarix has about 60 species growing mainly in saline areas of deserts and semi-deserts in Asia, Europe, northeastern and southwestern Africa. Thirty-five species of Tamarix are grown in Iran, which have been used in fields to prevent deforestation, control soil erosion or for ornamental purposes. We have limited information on anatomical features of these species. We used 15 anatomical characters for our investigation in 10 species. PCoA ordination of the studied species based on anatomical data separated some of these species from the others. We identified 5 species that were well delimited by anatomical analysis.

Tima

Tima (ISO 639-3: tms) is a Niger-Congo language spoken by roughly 7,000 people in the Nuba mountains of Sudan, in north-eastern Africa, as well as in smaller communities in the bigger towns of Sudan such as Khartoum and Port Sudan. It is part of the Katla language group which includes the languages Katla and Julut as well as Tima, with Tima being the most distinct of the three. All three languages are regarded as endangered, mainly due to the spreading influence of Arabic in recent decades, but also due to greater speaker mobility. Broadly speaking, there is a decline in speaker fluency from older to younger speakers of Tima. The Tima people are not only exposed to Arabic as the lingua franca and official language of Sudan, but also to English and Kiswahili. These latter languages were introduced into the school system during the extremely difficult circumstances of the second civil war (1983–2005), when teachers from Kenya came to the Tima region (in addition, many Tima people went to Kenya for further education).1

Retrieving land surface temperatures from IASI hyperspectral thermal infrared data using an AFNO-transformer model.

An adaptive Fourier neural operator (AFNO)-transformer model was developed to retrieve land surface temperature (LST) data from infrared atmospheric sounding interferometer (IASI) observations. A weight selection scheme based on linearization of the radiative transfer equation was proposed to solve the hyperspectral data channel redundancy problem. The IASI brightness temperatures and Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer onboard MetOp (AVHRR/MetOp) LST product were selected to construct the training and test datasets. The AFNO-transformer performed effective token mixing through self-attention and effectively solved the global convolution problem in the Fourier domain, which can better learn complex nonlinear equations and achieve time-series forecasting. The root mean square error indicated that the LST in Eastern Spain and North Africa could be retrieved with an error of less than 2.5 K compared with the AVHRR/MetOp LST product. Moreover, the validation results from other time period data showed that the retrieval accuracy of this model can be less than 3 K. The proposed model provides a novel approach for hyperspectral LST retrieval.

Root zone soil moisture in over 25 % of global land permanently beyond pre-industrial variability as early as 2050 without climate policy

Abstract. Root zone soil moisture is a key variable representing water cycle dynamics that strongly interact with ecohydrological, atmospheric, and biogeochemical processes. Recently, it was proposed as the control variable for the green water planetary boundary, suggesting that widespread and considerable deviations from baseline variability now predispose Earth system functions critical to an agriculture-based civilization to destabilization. However, the global extent and severity of root zone soil moisture changes under future scenarios remain to be scrutinized. Here, we analysed root zone soil moisture departures from the pre-industrial climate variability for a multi-model ensemble of 14 Earth system models (ESMs) in the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 6 (CMIP6) in four climate scenarios as defined by the shared socioeconomic pathways (SSPs) SSP1–2.6, SSP2–4.5, SSP3–7.0, and SSP5–8.5 between 2021 and 2100. The analyses were done for 43 ice-free climate reference regions used by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). We defined “permanent departures” when a region's soil moisture exits the regional variability envelope of the pre-industrial climate and does not fall back into the range covered by the baseline envelope until 2100. Permanent dry departures (i.e. lower soil moisture than pre-industrial variability) were found to be most pronounced in Central America, southern Africa, the Mediterranean region, and most of South America, whereas permanent wet departures are most pronounced in south-eastern South America, northern Africa, and southern Asia. In the Mediterranean region, dry permanent departure may have already happened according to some models. By 2100, there are dry permanent departures in the Mediterranean in 70 % of the ESMs in SSP1–2.6, the most mitigated situation, and more than 90 % in SSP3–7.0 and SSP5–8.5, the medium–high and worst-case scenarios. North-eastern Africa is projected to experience wet permanent departures in 64 % of the ESMs under SSP1–2.6 and 93 % under SSP5–8.5. The percentage of ice-free land area with departures increases in all SSP scenarios as time goes by. Wet departures are more widespread than dry departures throughout the studied time frame, except in SSP1–2.6. In most regions, the severity of the departures increases with the severity of global warming. In 2050, permanent departures (ensemble median) occur in about 10 % of global ice-free land areas in SSP1–2.6 and in 25 % in SSP3–7.0. By the end of the 21st century, the occurrence of permanent departures in SSP1–2.6 increases to 34 % and, in SSP3–7.0, to 45 %. Our findings underscore the importance of mitigation to avoid further degrading the Earth system functions upheld by soil moisture.

Eurasian back-migration into Northeast Africa was a complex and multifaceted process.

Recent studies have identified Northeast Africa as an important area for human movements during the Holocene. Eurasian populations have moved back into Northeastern Africa and contributed to the genetic composition of its people. By gathering the largest reference dataset to date of Northeast, North, and East African as well as Middle Eastern populations, we give new depth to our knowledge of Northeast African demographic history. By employing local ancestry methods, we isolated the Non-African parts of modern-day Northeast African genomes and identified the best putative source populations. Egyptians and Sudanese Copts bore most similarities to Levantine populations whilst other populations in the region generally had predominantly genetic contributions from the Arabian peninsula rather than Levantine populations for their Non-African genetic component. We also date admixture events and investigated which factors influenced the date of admixture and find that major linguistic families were associated with the date of Eurasian admixture. Taken as a whole we detect complex patterns of admixture and diverse origins of Eurasian admixture in Northeast African populations of today.

Phylogeny, biogeography, and integrative taxonomic revision of the Afro-Arabian rodent genus Ochromyscus (Muridae: Murinae: Praomyini)

Abstract The analyses of Plio-Pleistocene speciation processes in the Horn of Africa are relevant for understanding the evolution of biodiversity patterns of this understudied part of the world. Here we analyse comprehensive genomic and morphological data of the recently delimited murid genus Ochromyscus, one of the few with Afro-Arabian distribution. Using an integrative taxonomic approach, we delimit three species in the genus: two in eastern Africa (O. brockmani and O. niveiventris) and one in southern Arabia (O. yemeni), and detail their distribution, genetic structure, and evolutionary history. Despite their morphological similarity, the three species split before the Pleistocene, and their interspecific genetic divergence level is comparable to that between sister genera of murine rodents. The split between two taxa living on opposite sides of the Red Sea (O. brockmani vs. O. yemeni) is younger than the separation of their ancestor and O. niveiventris living in eastern Africa. The colonization of Arabia can be explained either by the presence of a relatively recent continental bridge or by the past occurrence of the genus along the eastern coast of the Red Sea and subsequent spreading through the Sinai Peninsula.