Bay (Somalia)

Bay
Basic data
Country	Somalia
Capital	Baidoa
surface	35,156 km²
Residents	792,182 (calculation 2013)
density	23 inhabitants per km²
ISO 3166-2	SO-BY

Coordinates: 3 ° 6 '  N , 43 ° 40'  E

Bay (also spelled Baay ; Arabic باي Bāy ) is a region ( gobolka ) in southern Somalia . Its capital is Baidoa , which has also been the seat of Somalia's transitional government since 2005.

Other cities are Buurhakaba and Dinsor , where there is a health post for 650,000 people in the area. The cities named also give their districts their names; other districts are Qasahdhere and Ufurow . The region lies between the two major rivers of Somalia, the Jubba and the Shabeelle , which, however, do not flow through the Bay itself.

Bay is one of the more densely populated areas of Somalia. The residents of Bay are mostly the Somali - Clan of the Rahanweyn to, besides also are Hawiye and smaller minorities represented. The most important livelihood of the population is rain-fed agriculture, combined with sedentary cattle breeding (agropastoralism). The predominant language is the Maay dialect of Somali .

history

In the early 1990s, various warring factions operated in the region as the Somali civil war began. This led to looting and attacks against the local population. The farming Rahanweyn in Bay were particularly hard hit by such attacks, as they are traditionally viewed by parts of the rest of Somali society as inferior and had relatively few weapons to fight against. As a result, Bay was one of the areas hardest hit by the 1991–1993 famine ; At that time, around half a million people are said to have starved to death in the region around Baidoa.

In 1995 the Hawiye warlord Mohammed Farah Aidid conquered Baidoa and ousted the local Rahanweyn administration there. As a result, the Rahanweyn Resistance Army (RRA) was formed, which recaptured large parts of the Rahanweyn area in Bay and the adjacent Bakool and has since been a significant political force in the region. Furthermore, Baidoa and the rest of the Bay were fought over between different clans and warlords. After initial hostility, the RRA joined Somalia's transitional government , which was formed in 2000 and has had its provisional seat in Baidoa since 2005.

In 2006, fierce fighting broke out in Bay between troops from the transitional government and Ethiopia and the Union of Islamic Courts . In the meantime, the Union had pushed the transitional government back to a small area around Baidoa, before it was for its part displaced by advancing Ethiopian troops at the end of 2006.

swell

1. ↑ population estimation survey 2014 ( UNFPA ) table A3
2. ↑ GEO 02/2003 p. 60 (article "The Daily Apocalypse" about Mogadishu )