Mogadishu, locally known as Xamar or Hamar, is the capital and most populous city of Somalia. The city has served as an important port connecting with traders all round the Indian Ocean for millennia and has an estimated population of 4,288,000 (2021). Mogadishu is located in the coastal Banadir region on the Indian Ocean, which unlike other Somali regions, is considered a municipality rather than a maamul goboleed.
Masiphumelele is a township on the Cape Peninsula, South Africa, situated between Kommetjie, Capri Village and Noordhoek.
The Islamic Courts Union was a legal and political organization formed to address the lawlessness that had been gripping Somalia since the fall of the Siad Barre regime in 1991 during the Somali Civil War.
Between the fall of Siad Barre's government in January 1991 and the establishment of the Transitional National Government in 2006, there was no central government in Somalia. Large areas of the country such as Puntland and Galmudug were internationally unrecognized and administered as autonomous regions of Somalia, while forces in the northwest declared the Republic of Somaliland. The remaining areas, including the capital Mogadishu, were divided into smaller territories ruled by competing faction leaders. During this period, Somalia has been cited as a real-world example of a stateless society and a country with no formal legal system.
Somalis in the United Kingdom include British citizens and residents born in or with ancestors from Somalia. The United Kingdom (UK) is home to the largest Somali community in Europe, with an estimated 108,000 Somali-born immigrants residing in the UK in 2018 according to the Office for National Statistics. The majority of these live in England, with the largest number found in London. Smaller Somali communities exist in Birmingham, Bristol, Manchester, Liverpool, Leicester, Milton Keynes, Sheffield and Cardiff.
Eastleigh is a neighbourhood in Nairobi, Kenya. It is located east of the central business district. It is known for its business prowess, as well as "its poor infrastructure.
Harakat al-Shabaab al-Mujahideen, more commonly known as al-Shabaab, is a Somalia-based terrorist jihadist fundamentalist group active in East Africa and Yemen. The group describes itself as waging jihad against "enemies of Islam" and is engaged in combat against the Federal Government of Somalia and the African Union Mission to Somalia (AMISOM). The group has been suspected of having links with al-Qaeda in Islamic Maghreb and Boko Haram. Due to its Wahhabi roots, al-Shabaab is hostile to Sufi traditions and has often clashed with the Somali Sufi militia Ahlu Sunna Waljama'a. Al-Shabaab’s leaders and commanders are mainly from the Hawiye clan, which is one of the largest clans in Somalia. It has attracted some members from Western countries, including Briton Samantha Lewthwaite and American Abu Mansoor Al-Amriki.
The Somali diaspora or Qurbajoogta refers to Somalis who were born in Greater Somalia and reside in areas of the world that they were not born in. The civil war in Somalia greatly increased the size of the Somali diaspora, as many Somalis moved from Greater Somalia primarily to Europe, North America, Southern Africa and Australia. There are also small Somali populations in other pockets of Europe and Asia. The UN estimates that in 2015, approximately 2 million people from Somalia were living outside of the country's borders.
Somali Americans are Americans of Somali ancestry. The first ethnic Somalis to arrive in the U.S. were sailors who came in the 1920s from British Somaliland. They were followed by students pursuing higher studies in the 1960s and 1970s, by the late 1970s through the late 1980s and early 1990s more Somalis arrived. However, it was not until the mid and late 1990s when the civil war in Somalia broke out that the majority of Somalis arrived in the United States. The Somali community in the U.S is now among the largest in the Somali diaspora.
Sheikh Mukhtar Robow, also known as Abu Mansur, is a former deputy leader and former spokesman of the Somali militant group Al-Shabaab.in 2015 he defected from Alshabab due to ideology after years of hiding in his hometown he then surrounded to the federal government aftermath of US left the restrictions.
Prior to 1994, immigrants from elsewhere faced discrimination and even violence in South Africa. After majority rule in 1994, contrary to expectations, the incidence of xenophobia increased. Between 2000 and March 2008, at least 67 people died in what were identified as xenophobic attacks. In May 2008, a series of attacks left 62 people dead; although 21 of those killed were South African citizens. The attacks were motivated by xenophobia. In 2015, another nationwide spike in xenophobic attacks against immigrants in general prompted a number of foreign governments to begin repatriating their citizens. A Pew Research poll conducted in 2018 showed that 62% of South Africans viewed immigrants as a burden on society by taking jobs and social benefits and that 61% of South Africans thought that immigrants were more responsible for crime than other groups. Between 2010 and 2017 the immigrant community in South Africa increased from 2 million people to 4 million people. The proportion of South Africa's total population that is foreign born increased from 2.8% in 2005 to 7% in 2019, according to the United Nations International Organization for Migration, in spite of widespread xenophobia in the country. This made South Africa the largest recipient of immigrants on the African continent in 2019.
The 2009–present phase of the Somali Civil War is concentrated in southern and central Somalia and portions of north eastern Kenya. It began in early February 2009 with the conflict between the forces of the Federal Government of Somalia, assisted by African Union peacekeeping troops, and various militant groups and factions. The violence has displaced thousands of people in the southern part of the country. The civil war has also seen fighting between the Sufi Ahlu Sunna Waljama'a and al-Shabaab.
Somalis in India include naturalized citizens and residents of India who were born in or have ancestors from Somalia.
Somalis in Kenya are citizens and residents of Kenya who are of Somali ethnic descent. They have historically inhabited the North Eastern Province, previously called the Northern Frontier District, which was carved out of the Jubaland region of present-day southern Somalia during the colonial period. Following the civil war in Somalia that broke out in 1991, many Somalis sought asylum in the Somali-inhabited enclaves of Kenya. An entrepreneurial community, they established themselves in the business sector, particularly in the Nairobi suburb of Eastleigh.
Pakistanis in Somalia are residents of Somalia who are of Pakistani ancestry. They were historically a small community of retail traders and businesspeople.
Somalis are an ethnic group in the Minneapolis–Saint Paul metropolitan area that makes up the largest Somali diasporas in the United States. By 2018, approximately 43,000 people born in Somalia were living in Minnesota, and approximately 94,000 Minnesotans spoke Somali, Amharic, or a related language at home.
In the Democratic Republic of the Congo there is a significant community of Chinese migrants located in the capital of Kinshasa and the mineral rich southern Haut-Katanga Province. According to official figures from the Chinese embassy, there are 5,000 Chinese living in the DR Congo, though the actual number is believed to be far higher. More recent estimates vary from 5,000 to 50,000. The Mining industry of the Democratic Republic of the Congo is a main reason for Chinese people moving to the DRC.
The Embassy of the United States of America to Somalia is a diplomatic mission of the United States in Mogadishu, Somalia from 1960 to 1991. In 1957, the US opened a consulate-general in Mogadishu—the capital of the Trust Territory of Somalia, a UN trusteeship under Italian administration. The consulate was upgraded to embassy status in July 1960, when the US recognized Somalia's independence and appointed an ambassador. The embassy served to counter Soviet influence during the Cold War and also served as a base for the United States Agency for International Development, which had a large presence in the country. In 1989, the embassy moved from a dilapidated building in central Mogadishu to a new compound on the outskirts of the city.
Anti-Somali sentiment or Somalophobia refers to the existence of fear and hostility against Somalis, or their culture.
The 2019 Johannesburg riots occurred in the South African city of Johannesburg from 1–5 September 2019, leading to the deaths of at least seven people. The riots were xenophobic in nature, targeting foreign nationals from the rest of Africa. Retaliatory actions by rioters in other African nations was taken against South African brands. The South African Institute of Race Relations stated that the riots were similar in nature and origin to the 2008 xenophobic riots that also occurred in Johannesburg.
