More than 185,000 people have fled their homes in the contested border town of Las Anod in Somalia’s breakaway region of Somaliland due to clashes, according to the UN’s emergency response agency. Somaliland, which has claimed independence from Somalia since 1991 but has never been recognized internationally, is often seen as a beacon of stability in a chaotic region. However, political unrest has surged in recent months, with violent confrontations erupting last week between Somaliland forces and tribes in the Sool region that seek the unity of Somalia.
Despite a ceasefire being declared, the UN’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said reports of heavy fighting continued to surface. “More than 185,000 people have been displaced,” OCHA said in a statement released late Thursday, with aid workers struggling to respond to the situation due to inadequate resources. Women and children accounted for an estimated 89 percent of the displaced population, with many seeking shelter under trees or inside schools that have been forced to shut due to the violence.
Las Anod General Hospital reported 57 deaths, with 401 injured victims treated at four different hospitals, according to OCHA. In addition to the tens of thousands of people displaced inside Somaliland, more than 60,000 others have fled to Ethiopia’s Somali region to escape the violence, the UN’s refugee agency said Friday. “Exhausted and traumatized, they have arrived with very little, only taking what they could carry,” UNHCR spokeswoman Olga Sarrado Mur told a press briefing in Geneva. “An average of 1,000 people continue to cross into Ethiopia each day,” she said, adding that resources were stretched thin in the Somali region, which is in the throes of a record drought following five failed rainy seasons.
Why fighting in Las Anod broke out?
The fighting broke out on February 6 in Las Anod, which is located on a key trade corridor and is claimed by both Somaliland and neighboring Puntland, a semi-autonomous state of northeastern Somalia. The violence erupted after elders in the Sool region issued a statement pledging support for Somalia’s federal government and urged Somaliland authorities to withdraw their soldiers from the area. Somaliland authorities announced a ceasefire on February 10 but on Sunday accused Somalia of attacking its forces. Mogadishu did not respond directly to the allegations.
Somalia’s Prime Minister Hamza Abdi Barre welcomed the ceasefire on Friday and called for “immediate access to humanitarian assistance.” “With thousands of people displaced, the need for emergency relief is more pressing now,” he said on Twitter. Control of Las Anod has changed hands several times in recent decades. Somaliland, a region of 4.5 million people, is a former British protectorate. It prints its own currency, issues its own passports, and elects its own government, but its quest for statehood has gone unrecognized, leaving it poor and isolated. The region has been relatively stable in comparison to Somalia, which has witnessed decades of civil war and Islamist insurgency.
