Aluula
Coordinates: 11 ° 57 ' N , 50 ° 45' E
Bandar Aluula (also Alula, Calula, Caluula or Halule ) is a port city in northeast Somalia , about 50 kilometers west of Cape Guardafui . It is located in the Bari region , which is part of the de facto autonomous Puntland .
Aluula is possibly identical to the city of Akannai mentioned in the ancient Periplus Maris Erythraei . Later the port became a naval base and a center of piracy. The place and the surrounding area are dominated by the Majerteen- Darod clan , who founded the Majerteen-Sultanate in the nearby Bargaal in the 19th century , which originally extended southwards to Hobyo .
Concerned by the British protectorate of Somaliland in his neighborhood, Sultan Bogor Osman Mahmud Yusuf (1854–1927) had signed friendship and protection treaties in September 1885, first with the German-East African Society , then in April 1889 with the Italians. German attempts to set up the contractually guaranteed branch in Aluula failed. Instead, an Italian consul took up his seat in Aluula in 1889.
Aluula was militarily occupied by the Italians in 1906 and the sultanate was finally eliminated in 1924. The place was then expanded into a city by the Italians, but according to the Enciclopedia universal ilustrada europeo-americana , around 1930 it only had 500 inhabitants. It only flourished after Somalia's independence and today has a population of around 40,000. However, due to the Somali civil war , the city has become impoverished and a center of piracy again. As a result, up to 100,000 Somalis tried to escape as boat refugees from Aluula and neighboring ports to the opposite Yemen or the Arabian Peninsula, at least 1,500 of whom died between 1993 and 2009 from drowning, hypothermia or exhaustion. A reception or internment camp for Somali refugees is located on the Yemeni island of Socotra .