Flag of Somalia

Flag of Somalia
	; ;
Vexillological symbol :	?
Aspect ratio:	2: 3
Officially accepted:	October 12, 1954

The flag of Somalia ( Somali Calanka Soomaaliya ) with a five-pointed white star on a blue background is the national flag of the Federal Republic of Somalia, which was founded on August 20, 2012 .

Description and meaning

The five-pointed star is a symbol of freedom and represents the five areas in which Somali live. In addition to the former Italian and British colonies of Italian Somaliland and British Somaliland , which today form the country of Somalia, these are also the former province of Ogaden in Ethiopia , the northern border district of Kenya and Djibouti . A political current known as Pan-Somalism lays claim to these areas to form Greater Somalia .

The basic color was originally derived from the flag of the United Nations to thank for its contribution to the promotion and development of the country. According to current interpretation, the blue color symbolizes the sky and the Indian Ocean in the east of the country.

history

The origin of the flag goes back to the transition period in 1954, before the former colonies of British Somaliland and Italian Somaliland received their independence. Its design was a proposal by the teacher Mohammed Awale Liban before the Legislative Council , which had been formed by the administration of the Italian Trust Territory of Somalia in preparation for independence.

The flag was introduced on October 12, 1954, while it was still under foreign administration. It is said to have been officially hoisted for the first time on June 26, 1960, when the British-administered area became Somaliland for a few days . After unification with the trust territory and the establishment of the Republic of Somalia on July 1, 1960, it was finally the national flag of the newly formed Somali state.

Both the Somali Democratic Republic under dictator Siad Barre retained the flag, as did a majority of the autonomous states that emerged in the Somali civil war after 1991. The latter wanted to express their continued affiliation to a common Somali state, which had long since disintegrated, but was to be re-established after the end of the war. Somaliland is an exception. It declared itself independent on May 18, 1991 and has since endeavored to gain international recognition as an independent state. To illustrate the separation from the rest of Somalia, the de facto regime immediately introduced a completely new national flag for Somaliland when the state was founded .

The transitional government of Somalia , established in 2000 as an attempt by the international community of states to establish a new central state representation of Somalia, used the flag from 2004 until it was replaced by the representatives of the Federal Republic of Somalia in 2012. To express a regional identity, to differentiate In the course of time, new flags also appeared in those states that wanted to stick to the idea of a superordinate Somalia to differentiate themselves from one another or to differentiate themselves from the representatives of the largely powerless transitional government. As a rule, however, basic elements of the Somali flag have been incorporated into the new design.

In December 2009, Madobe Mohammed Nunow , the Minister for Constitutional and Federal Affairs, declared that Puntland also had the right to its own new flag, as Somalia was now striving to form a federal state. A flag of its own does not automatically mean the independence of Puntland from Somalia. Shortly afterwards, on December 23, 2009, the parliament of Puntland adopted a new flag of its own. A horizontally divided tricolor in blue, white and green with a five-pointed white star in the middle of the blue stripe. The star and blue stripe symbolize that Puntland belongs to Somalia. White stands for peace and stability, green for the natural wealth of Puntland. On April 4, 2011 in Nairobi ( Kenya ) another state in Somalia was proclaimed , which has its territory roughly in Jubaland and bears the name Azania . Its flag is a horizontal tricolor in white, blue and red, resembling the flag of Russia .