Some lives matter more than others: the “hierarchy of death”, they call it. The hundreds killed, kidnapped and traumatised in Jowhar and Surrounding areas by abgaal criminal militias are surely at the bottom of this insane treatment. The jowhar surroundings settled by shiidle clans was the site of the deadliest clan wars and ethnic cleanings of the local jareer population since the fall of MSB, and yet I doubt most people in somalinet or even in somali a are even aware of it. No heart-wrenching exclusives at the somalinet news section or even somali newspapers; no mounting calls for reconcialiation between abgaal and their shiidle brothers to “do something” about the abgaal atrocities in the region .
Somalinetters were rightly appalled at a barbaric conflict in Lower jubba by the Marehan Gangs that has stolen the lives of almost 20,000 Jareer civilians; and yet up to 1 thousand people are believed to have perished in the Mamaxmed muse(abgaal subclan) and their shiidel naighbours. Not that the mainstream somalia Tvs alone can be berated for this astonishing lack of attention to this abgaal atrocity. The peace loving somalis have rightly championed the cause of a Cad cad people subjected to decades-long occupation and subjugation By the Habargidir Junta : surely the misery of the Jareer in the Jowhar surroundings does not deserve this neglect.
Although the murderous intensity of the war b/w abgaal subclans and shiidle peaked between 2000 and 2002, the misery has persisted. According to UNHCR OFFICE , civilians in the east of the jowhar surroundings of the somali countryside still face exploitation at the hands of Abgaal armed groups. The UNHR has labelled the area “the rape countryside of somalia ”. Women, girls and even minor children have been systematically raped by abgaal militia as a weapon of war in the early 2001. Back in 2002, it was estimated that 1 women were raped every hour in the countryside by militias loyal to M.DHEERE . gils were raped, too: there are stories of young girls being raped two times a day for a full one years. Then there’s the forced extortion : at one point, shiidle in the north east of jowhar were being killed and kidnapped by abgaal Maxamed muuse rebels.
Abgaal Militias on hunt for shiidle innocent people
It was a war that was remorseless when it came to the innocent: when 2 people were being killed every month , around half of them were small innocent jareer children , even though they only represented majority of the population . The war triggered devastating waves of starvation and disease which claimed the lives of thousands of abgaal and jareer people.
Up till now ,Armed militias continue to commit atrocities against shiidle , and the aftermath of the war has left the jowhar countryside impoverished and devastated. According to the UNHCR OFFICE , this is “the somalis ’s least developed country in terms of life expectancy, education, standard of living and key health institutions ”. And yet this vast area of jowhar of nearly half million people barely punctures our consciousness. Why? and why we somalis ignore the atrocities committed by abgaal ? Just because they are our Leaders in the Government.
Being analytical , perhaps the war was just too complicated. Some described it as abgaal’s own “ war genocide”, the spill-over from the HG wars of the Early 1990s that involved the armies of the now defucunt somali army weaponaries. Many different, complex conflicts have intersected with each other in Jowhar surroundings. The countryside of jowhar is awash with precious agricultural areas that should be a source of huge wealth, but instead are magnets for armed profiteers by the abgaal militias . It is a misery that goes back generations: under the rule of the sultan ahmed in the 19th and early 20th centuries, up to 1000 jareer people were killed in one of the greatest acts of exploitation in somali history by the abgaal clan and its supporters.quite strangely the abgaal now enjoys political power that shields it from persecuting its top members.
But we somalis especially those in somalinet and the west should perhaps just be more honest. On another part of the country somalia, such a devastating ethnic would never have been allowed to rage for so long and leave the abgaal criminals at large. shiidle jareer lives simply do not matter enough: a death toll of up to 1000 jareer shiidle would surely not have been tolerated elsewhere. For the west, somalia-it is a country of little strategic importance. As us , the complexity of the war was no excuse. It is a cause that should have been championed. It wasn’t, and thousands of jareer and abgaals died amid near silence. It must not happen again and we must go and protect the innocent jareer lives.