Tensions in the city of Borama continue to escalate as protests intensify following the Somaliland government’s decision to allow the launch event for the Xeer Isse book to take place in the town of Zeila. The late-night policy shift triggered unrest that residents say has led to some of the most serious clashes the city has seen in decades. The dispute erupted when authorities in Hargeisa announced support for the event, which was organized to mark UNESCO’s December 2024 decision to add Xeer Isse to its Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity. The recognition…
Two people were killed and at least ten others were injured during violent protests that erupted last night in Borama, the capital of Somaliland’s Awdal region. The unrest was triggered by a government decision to permit the launch of a book on Xeer Isse, a traditional clan charter recently recognized by UNESCO, which has been at the center of heated clan tensions in recent weeks. According to eyewitnesses, dozens of protesters took to the streets to express their anger over the decision. They blocked several main roads and set car tires on fire before the situation escalated into direct…
Ethiopia and Egypt exchanged criticism this week. The dispute began after Ethiopia’s ambassador to Somalia rebutted an opinion piece written by Egypt’s foreign minister. The exchange points out increasing strain between the two countries. It also reflects a growing struggle for security influence in the Horn of Africa. Ethiopia’s continued push for sea access has further intensified the friction. In an opinion published in The Africa Report today, Ethiopian ambassador to Somalia Suleiman Dedefo accused Egypt of seeking to reassert itself in the Horn under what he described as a “strategic…
A new report by the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime warns that Sudan’s ongoing conflict has created “collateral circuits” of weapons and mercenary labour that are reshaping the security economies of Chad and Libya. the report finds that the collapse of Sudan’s military command structures since April 2023 has triggered both “inbound and outbound flows” of arms, embedding Sudanese-linked materiel into regional markets. Mercenary groups, drawn from remnants of rebel factions and newly recruited fighters, have become central to these logistics, escorting convoys,…
Former Somaliland President Muse Bihi Abdi faced a tense confrontation on Monday at Egal International Airport, where security forces attempted to block several members of his entourage from entering the facility. The situation escalated when officers fired shots into the air, triggering widespread national outrage. Videos that circulated on social media show the standoff ultimately forcing the former President to walk into the terminal on foot after an intense confrontation with airport security guards. The incident drew immediate criticism from opposition groups. The Kulmiye Party, which…
Somaliland’s structural failures stem from professions without regulatory power. Granting them real authority is essential for public safety and long-term development.…
A fierce struggle over visas, airspace, and aviation control is pulling Mogadishu and Hargeisa into their most consequential confrontation in decades — one that exposes the unresolved questions of sovereignty that have defined their relationship since 1991.…
As election season renews the search for a national rescuer, Somalia must confront a harder truth: personalities don’t save nations, institutions do. Escaping Barre’s long shadow requires reviving the democratic culture our early leaders once built.…
Somaliland’s education system was fragile long before AI. Now, unregulated generative tools threaten to push it past the point of recovery.…
The atrocities in El-Fasher reveal a long pattern of weaponized sexual violence in Darfur. These crimes are strategic, intentional, and central to the genocidal project.…
A justice system where cases never end, appeals spin endlessly upward, and citizens wait years for finality, Somaliland’s courts face a crisis that demands structural reform.…
Echoing past chapters of paranoia and prejudice, racial tropes and opportunistic politics have once again positioned Somali Minnesotans as easy targets in America’s recurring cycle of scapegoating — leaving them vulnerable to racialized blame designed to distract from the current administration’s domestic failures.…
Somalia’s push for one-person, one-vote elections is unraveling as unilateral constitutional changes, deepening federal fractures, and a worsening security crisis make the 2026 timeline politically untenable and nationally destabilizing.…
Reflecting on the complex interplay of myth, personal memory, and political data, Bushra Mohamed interrogates the systemic absence of Somali women in leadership.…
Far-right and pro-Israel actors are recasting Nigeria’s insecurity as sectarian extermination to distract from Palestine.…
Somali creatives across film, tech, photography, and architecture are asserting control of their own story, challenging misrepresentation and erasure.…
After a decade away, Afnan tries to reconcile the Hargeisa she once knew with the reality she now faces upon her return. …
After years without hosting major matches, Ethiopia uses the U-17 tournament to showcase its rebuilt stadiums, rising talent, and AFCON 2029 ambitions.…
For over four decades, Ibrahim Ismail Sugulle, known to all as Sooraan, used comedy as a vessel for his sharp social criticism. Through humor, he softened truth into laughter, awakening a nation to see itself more clearly…
Federico Donelli’s book Power Competition in the Red Sea traces how global rivalries, regional ambitions, and local crises converge along one of the world’s most strategic waterways. His analysis reveals a region where trade routes and political fault lines meet.…
In January 1964, a manual labourer from Uganda seized power in Zanzibar. The revolution, and the violence that followed in its wake, would reshape the region forever.…
The Hargeisa Cultural Center has become a hub for reconnecting with Somali history, arts, and literature. Through its programs and the Hargeisa International Book Fair, it bridges generations and dispersed identities.…
A new memoir traces how a former Islamist idealist became one of Somalia’s most outspoken advocates for pluralism, accountability, and ideas-driven leadership.…
Professor Hakim Adi, the first professor of the history of African heritage in the UK, speaks to Geeska about Pan-Africanism, Africa’s relationship with China, and his belief in history as a tool for change.Professor Hakim Adi is a prominent British-Nigerian pan-African. …
Why have I dedicated myself to this arduous task, you may wonder? Well, as Fanon himself eloquently stated in his treatise, “Each generation must discover its mission, fulfill it or betray it, in relative opacity.” …
Stuart Reid’s new book, The Lumumba Plot, revisits Patrice Lumumba’s assassination, with strong insight into the role of the US in assassinating Lumumba and bringing down the government of one of Africa’s most iconic leaders. …
Leaders across the Horn of Africa have touted the innumerable benefits of building ports for their people, putting them at the heart of their projects to develop their regions. …
South Africa’s decision to take Israel to the ICJ on charges of genocide could cost his country, says former South African ambassador and anti-apartheid activist Ebrahim Rasool, but is an act of “enormous integrity” …
Framed as a monument to coexistence, the Mogadishu Cathedral drew its form from Sicily’s medieval past. Through her research, Claire Dillon reveals how this architecture of “tolerance” masked the deep fractures of colonial ambition.…
A Somali physician and self-taught artist details how his medical studies ignited a profound passion for visual art, leading him to transform scientific knowledge into vibrant canvases that celebrate memory, identity, and the strength of women.…
What can a love song reveal about a nation’s heart? Anthropologist Christina Woolner speaks to Geeska about how Somali melodies bridge intimacy, resistence, memory, and public life. All in the name of love.…
Somali scholar Abdirahman Badiyow speaks to Geeska about Somali statehood, the clan, and Islam and why he thinks reconciling these is key to the nation’s future.…
Somali translator Abdiaziz Mahdi, widely known as Guudcadde, is bringing revolutionary global thought into the Somali language, making foundational postcolonial texts available in Somali for the first time. …