Civil strife has been ravaging Somalia for decades and has taken a terrible toll on its poor population. Killings and armed conflicts haven’t ceased in the country; when one area calms down, another one explodes. And residents abandon their homes as they become unsafe to live in. They leave their towns and only return when cleavages subside.
Lately, Puntland and Galmudug States have had their shares of turbulences. Armed conflicts of varied scales have occurred within each state, killing residents, maiming them, and forcing them to leave their homes.
Disagreements usually occur between two opposing sides concerning governance issues. Instead of resolving them peacefully, things get out of hand and the disagreements bring about chaos and carnage. Bloody clashes in the Galmudug and Puntland States have either claimed residents’ lives or maimed them.
While fighting is untamed, draughts and controversial elections are compounding Somalia’s predicament. A dreadful draught believed to be brought about by climate change has devastated some regions of the country, making many residents climate refugees. Also, the country is undergoing parliamentary and presidential elections, which are as volatile as they can be if wisdom and shrewdness don’t prevail.
Leaders of Regional States are already being alleged to have misappropriated parliament seats. For a long time, Somali clans have snatched parliamentary seats from each other, but no arbitration has ever transpired between accused and accusers. In Somalia, everything boils down to power and resources. The powerful ones simply push aside the weaker ones and embezzle their shares. Corruption is a disease, too. You can simply bribe anybody and get away with whatever you want. It’s that trouble-free.
Somalia is tired of killings, kinship gangsterism, and callous leaders. Civilians’ blood matters. The country can’t afford to lose any more people to unnecessary wars. There’s already another calamity that is hitting them hard, which is the recurring drought. All regional states in the country ought to wake up to the reality on the ground. Their residents are poor and weak, so they shouldn’t pit them against each other if not aid them out of the misery.