Somali states and regions 2002
Partition of Mogadishu among warlords 2001 (based on map drawn by Mohamed Rashid and John Drysdale)
The Land and the Peoples
1 Family of nomads approaching a dry river bed in the early morning (Somaliland). In the dry seasons the nomads must move frequently from place to place in search of pasture and water.
2 A young herdsman with cattle watering on the Shebelle River in the south of Somalia.
3 A field of ripe sorghum in the arable zone between Hargeisa and Borama in the north-west of Somalia. This is the main grain-growing area of the north.
4 A Southern Somali tribal chief with two of his wives and a tribal policeman (Illalo). The round mud and wattle house is the typical house-style of the agricultural regions between the Shebelle and Juba Rivers in the south.
5 On the Dawa Parma River which marks the north-western boundary between Kenya and Ethiopia in the extreme north of the Somali-occupied North Eastern Region of Kenya water is abundantly available. Elsewhere in this semi-desert region water is an extremely scarce commodity.
6 Stock Inspector inoculating camels against Rinderpest.
7 A manually operated ferry carrying people and livestock across the Juba River.
8 Cattle watering in southern Somalia. At deep wells such as these, the water is raised in skin buckets attached to long drawing ropes.
Before Partition
9 A finely carved door-frame in Zanzibar style in Mogadishu.
10 A view of Mogadishu as it appeared to the French explorer Charles Guillain in 1847 (from a print in the album illustrating Guillain’s voyages). Mogadishu’s oldest mosque bears an inscription dated A.D. 1238, while the city’s earliest funeral inscription goes back to the eighth century.
11 Camel-operated press used for extracting sesame oil at Mogadishu in 1847 (from the album of Guillain).
12 A view of the town of Geledi (Afgoi) on the Shebelle River as it appeared at the time of Guillain’s visit in 1847 (from Guillain’s album). The Geledi Sultan was the most powerful Somali chief on the Benadir coast in the nineteenth century.
13 Sir Richard Burton, the most distinguished explorer to travel in Somaliland (from the portrait by Lord Leighton, 1876, in the National Portrait Gallery, London). Burton’s brilliant record of his remarkable journey from Zeila to Harar – the ‘Timbuctu of East Africa’, as he described it – in 1854 is the most valuable early source on northern Somali history and culture.
The Colonial Partition of Somaliland
14 Exchange of letters dated 8 February and 19 March, 1889, between the Sultan of Obbia, ‘Ali Yusuf, and the Italian Consul V. Filonardi assigning the Sultan an annuity of 1200 dollars in return for his acceptance of Italian protection.
15 Troops embarking at Mogadishu in 1925 for the operations against the Sultans of Obbia and Alula which finally incorporated these northern Italian protectorates in the colony of Somalia.
16 The ruins of Sayyid Muhammad ‘Abdille Hassan’s headquarters in Taleh, in the north-east of Somalia, as they appeared in 1950, thirty years after the aerial bombardment by the British and the collapse of the Dervish movement.
17 The Duke of Abruzzi, who founded the Societa Agricola Italo-Somala which rationalized plantation farming in the colony and revolutionized its economy. The Duke, a direct heir to the Spanish throne, died in 1933 and is buried in the plantation centre named after him (Villagio Duca degli Abruzzi) on the Shebelle River.
Somalia under Military Rule
18 Ceremony marking the end of the month of Ramadan at Government House, Mogadishu, during the last years of the British Military Administration. Facing the Chief Kadi (standing) is Brigadier-General R. H. Smith, Chief Administrator of Somalia in 1948. Although the British proposals for unifying the Somali territories failed, it was under British military rule that the first beginnings of modern Somali advancement were achieved.
19 Party of Somalia Gendarmerie collecting water from a well near Mogadishu. This British-officered armed police force played a crucial rôle in helping to foster the growth of anti-tribal sentiments in Somalia.
Preparation for Independence
20 Sir Gerald Reece, Governor of British Somaliland 1948–53, opening the Trades School at Hargeisa in 1952.
21 Somali District Commissioner greeting tribesmen in the south. Under the Italian trusteeship administration of Somalia, all expatriate District and Provincial Commissioners were replaced by Italian-trained Somali officials in 1956, four years before independence.
22 Colonel Muhammad Abshir assuming command of the Somalia Police Force from Colonel Arnera of the Italian Carabinieri at Mogadishu in December, 1958. Behind the microphone is Di Stefani; Administrator of Somalia at the time.
23 Adan ‘Abdulle ‘Osman, Somalia’s first president,