somaliland
Somaliland's Circus Performers Are Acrobats with a Social Mission
The performers draw people in with the novelty of the circus and then hit them with didactic plays on the major social ails of the country, like khat abuse, human trafficking, unemployment, and female genital mutilation.
Inside Somaliland’s Pirate Rehab
If you've ever wondered what happened to all those pirates who were terrorizing boats—including Tom Hanks'—off the coast of Somalia a while back, many of them got scooped up and sent to a prison in Somaliland with a focus on rehabilitation.
Midgaans and Ethiopians Are Fighting for Last Place in Somaliland
The truly troubling thing about the Midgaan-Ethiopian competition for “unclean” jobs is that, if these minority groups joined forces, they’d constitute a fair power block of well over 100,000 people in a nation of just 3.5 million. But the groups can’t...
My Time with One of Somaliland’s Khat Kingpins
Khat is a longstanding part of Somali culture, and people familiar with the plant in Yemen and Ethiopia jump to defend it as a recreational social lubricant. But it’s not so benign in Somaliland anymore. Ethiopian growers flood the market, realizing...
Al Qaeda's Somalia Cell Is Fractured and Dangerous
Al-Shabaab is the terrorist group that’s been periodically ravaging and ruling parts of Somalia for the past six years and, in 2012, officially became a subsidiary of al Qaeda. I had a sit-down with one of its alleged former soldiers.
Somaliland Is a Real Country, According to Somaliland
At the back corner of the top floor of a little office building in London’s East End, around the corner from the Tesco down Mile End Road from the Whitechapel subway stop, sits the one-room Somaliland Mission in the UK. Yes, Somaliland, not Somalia.
Crossing Pirate Alley on a Yemeni Cookie Boat
After a week of lingering around in Aden, I secured a spot on a ship bound for Somaliland, transporting a quarter-million pounds of cookies.