Travel Info Facts About Somalia
Travel tips for your trip to Somalia Hotel Maps Famous Places in Somalia helps you to make your trip to Somalia in the holiday a Splendid One
The country’s president, Abdullah Yusuf spent months in peace negotiations with the SICC with little effect.At the same time Somalia’s neighbour Ethiopia, considering the SICC to be a threat to regional security, began amassing troops on the two country’s shared border.This lead to Ethiopia launching air strikes against the SICC in December of that year, resulting in Ethiopia gaining control of Mogadishu and ending 15 years of anarchy in the country.
In January 2007 the U.S launched air strikes against the retreating SICC, who they believed included members of al - Qaeda.
Fierce battles between insurgents and Somali and Ethiopian troops intensified in March of that year in what has been described as the worse fighting the country had ever witnessed.
COASTAL TOWN OF BARAWA.
By June of 2008 Ethiopian troops were replaced by U.N peace keeping troops and went on to withdraw completely by January of 2009.
Although a government is in place, it lacks authority, being completely unable to bring peace amongst it’s once peacable but now warring tribal warlords, or to gain a grip on it’s rising Islamist militias that are bringing the country to it’s knees.
The long standing absence of authority in the country has led to Somali pirates becoming a threat to international shipping, causing N.A.T.O to launch an anti piracy operation along the country’s coastline.
One of the reasons for this could well be attributed to the fact that following the massive tsunami of 2004, allegations emerged that Somalia’s long and remote coastline had been used as a dump site for the disposal of toxic waste.
The huge waves that battered Somalia’s coast following the tsunami supposedly stirred up tonnes of nuclear and toxic waste that had been illegally dumped by European waste brokers Achair Partners and Progresso.
According to reports from U.N.E.P ( United Nations Environmental Programme ) the waste has resulted in high instances of respitory infections, mouth ulcers, abdominal haemorrhaging, skin infections and diseases consistent with radiation sickness, amongst inhabitants of the Somalia coastline.
EDUCATION
Somalia’s ministry of education takes 15 % of the governments budget, which now offers free primary school education and salaries for teachers.
Higher education is largely private, with the capital’s University of Mogadishu ranking in Africa’s top 100 universities.
The Qu’ranic system teaches the greatest number of students, particularly females, retaining the basic system of traditional religious instruction in the country.
HEALTHCARE.
Healthcare is basic in the country, with little healthcare education and a problematic drug control system that disallows many of the world’s leading drug companies to trade there.
However Somalia does have the lowest HIV instance in the whole of the African continent, although this is most probably attributed to it’s Islamic moral code of living, rather than healthcare intravention.
LANGUAGE.
Somali is the official language of the country. It is a member of the Cushitic branch of the Afro - Asiatic language group.
It’s writing system uses the Latin alphabet , introduced in 1972 by Somali linguist Shire Jama Ahmed, to replace the centuries old, now non existant, ancient Osmanya script, previously used in Somalia for centuries.
JUDICIAL SYSTEM.
Somalia’s 9,133,000 Islamic population have two judicial systems in place.
Sharia law which deals in civil issues, pertaining to marriage, divorce and inheritance and a little known indigenous system called Xeer law.
This system seems to have developed exclusivly in Somalia, and been in use since the 7th century.
It can be defined by a few fundamental principles of international law, but it is basically a polycentric system or privately produced system, that bears little relevence to the world’s monopolistic statutary International law systems.
Somalia is considered by some to be the cradle of civilisation, with scientists and archaeologists discovering ancient burial sites and cave drawings there, that are considered older than anything found anywhere else on earth.
