Italian Somalia Trust Territory

Coat of arms of the trust area

Map of present-day Somalia. Green: The former Italian trust territory

The Italian Trust Territory of Somalia ( Italian Amministrazione fiduciaria italiana della Somalia , acronym "AFIS"), officially United Nations Trust Territory of Somaliland, was one of the former colonies administered by the United Nations as trust territory between 1949 and 1960 . The territory that emerged from Italian Somaliland was given back to Italy for administration on January 1, 1950, and the official name was expanded to include the addition of under Italian administration .

The national anthem of the motherland Il Canto degli Italiani served as the anthem . Until October 21, 1954, the area only used the Italian flag, but in the following years always in conjunction with the flag of the United Nations . The official language was Italian , but Somali was also recognized as the official language, which at that time and until 1972 was not written in Latin but in Arabic characters . The area covered about 500,000 km². The Somalo, which was specially created as a means of payment for this area, served as the currency from 1950 .

development

In 1941, Italian Somaliland was occupied by troops from Great Britain and South Africa during the East Africa campaign of the anti-Hitler coalition and Great Britain took over administration of the former Italian colony until November 1949.

The United Nations declared after the war, the former Italian Somalia to the UN Trust Territory and decided again to entrust its management for 10 years in Italy. Italy took control from January 1, 1950 until independence on July 1, 1960. The neighboring British colony of Somaliland in the north-west had become independent five days earlier as State of Somaliland with Mohammed Haji Ibrahim Egal as Prime Minister and celebrated together with the Trust territory on whose independence day the unification of territories and establishment of the Republic of Somalia .

Parliamentary elections for the so-called Legislative Council were held for the first time in 1956 in the trust area . By far the strongest force was the Somali Youth League ( Somali Youth League ), a group that was founded with the aim of uniting the various Somali clans and leading them to independence. Three years later, in 1959, the last parliamentary elections followed in the Italian administrative zone . The Somali Youth League received 83 out of 90 seats, but this was mainly due to an election boycott by the opposition. Planning and preparations for independence and unification with the British colony had long been in full swing under Prime Minister and General Secretary of the Youth League Abdullahi Issa .

Web links

• Antonio Morone: L'Onu e l'Amministrazione fiduciaria italiana in Somalia. (PDF; 173 kB) Retrieved October 23, 2010 (Italian). 
• Trusteeship and Protectorate: The Road to Independence , via Library of Congress (English)