Boosaaso

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Boosaaso
بوساسو
Boosaaso
Boosaaso (Somalia)
Red pog.svg
Coordinates 11 ° 15 ′  N , 49 ° 11 ′  E Coordinates: 11 ° 15 ′  N , 49 ° 11 ′  E
Basic data
Country Somalia
also claimed by Puntland
PuntlandPuntland 

region

Bari
District Boosaaso
height 11 m
Residents 109,000 (2013 (calculated))
politics
mayor Hassan Abdallah Hassan
Bosaaso2007.jpg

Boosaaso (also written Bosaso , Arabic بوساسو Bawsāsū ; Alternative name Bender Cassim ) is a port city in northern Somalia on the Gulf of Aden , which belongs to the Indian Ocean . The city is the capital of the Bari region, which is part of the de facto autonomous Puntland .

population

Estimates and calculations of the population of Boosaaso vary widely. According to unofficial information, the city has around 250,000 inhabitants, of which around 30,000 are internally displaced in camps. Other information is based on around 109,000 or up to 700,000 residents. The most important clan are traditionally the Majerteen- Darod , but today members of various other clans also live in the city.

economy

More recently, Boosaaso has developed into the regional economic center in north-east Somalia, as the city has a well-developed infrastructure (an airport , access to the sea, main roads to Garoowe , Gaalkacyo and from there to Berbera and Mogadishu ) and in other parts of the country prevailing Somali civil war has remained relatively stable. Somali emigrants in Europe and North America contributed significantly to the development of the city with their money transfers. These factors have resulted in Boosaaso growing rapidly.

history

Some historians see the area of ​​Boosaaso (together with the cities of Berbera and Zeila ) as the ancient land of Punt , with which ancient Egypt already had trade relations in the 5th dynasty . These relationships continued under Pharaoh Hatshepsut until the 26th dynasty.

In the book Periplus Maris Erythraei it is noted that Greek traders sailed to Mosylon , which based on the descriptions is probably to be equated with Boosaaso.

Today's Boosaaso emerged from the settlement of Bender Qassim (City of Qassim), which was founded by the Arab trader Qassim in the 14th century. The name of the city is said to come from its camel called Bosa or Boosaas .

The Siad Barres regime built the main port in the 1980s, along with a two-lane dual carriageway on which cattle can be transported for shipping to the Arabian Peninsula.

Boosaaso in the present

Somali refugee boat in the Indian Ocean

Today Boosaaso - alongside Berbera and Djibouti - has become an important export port for goods from areas further south of Somalia and parts of Ethiopia , since the ports of Mogadishu and Kismayo in the south were closed for a long time due to the civil war . This partial shift in trade flows between southern Somalia and the Arabian Peninsula to Boosaaso led to an economic upswing.

Boosaaso itself has been controlled by the local clans and the SSDF anchored in them since the fall of the government in 1991 and has remained largely unaffected by fighting. Since 1998 it has been part of the de facto autonomous region of Puntland .

The city is growing rapidly and some say it is the fastest growing city in Somalia. Because of its economic prosperity, Boosaaso is increasingly becoming the target of war refugees and economic migrants from other parts of Somalia as well as from Ethiopia. Every year tens of thousands try to get from here as boat refugees across the Gulf of Aden to Yemen .

Panorama of Boosaaso

Web links

Commons : Boosaaso  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. bevölkerungsstatistik.de (2013)
  2. Christoph Plate: Clans, Sultans and Kalashnikovs. In: Berliner Zeitung . August 15, 1997, accessed July 10, 2015 .
  3. ARD Tagesschau: Hell journey of the hopeless (tagesschau.de archive)