Jowhar
Jowhar (also written Jawhar , Johar or Giohar , former name Villaggio Duca degli Abruzzi ) is a city in central Somalia with about 48,000 inhabitants. It is located on the Shabeelle River, about 90 km north of the state capital Mogadishu . Jowhar is the capital of the Shabeellaha Dhexe region .
history
Jowhar was founded in 1920 in what was then the colony of Italian Somaliland by Luigi Amadeo of Savoy , the Duke of Abruzzo, as an agricultural settlement in the Shidle area . The place was initially called Villaggio Duca degli Abruzzi or Villabruzzi after its founder . In 1926 the settlement consisted of 16 villages in which 200 Italians and 3,000 Somalis lived. In 1928 the Mogadishu-Villabruzzi railway was built as the only railway line in Somalia. It was dismantled by the British in 1941 during World War II and parts of the rolling stock were brought to Eritrea, where a locomotive still operates on the restored Massaua – Asmara line today. While cotton was initially the most important crop, it was later replaced by sugar cane due to falling world market prices. In addition, bananas were grown and exported to Italy.
In independent Somalia, Jowhar became the capital of the Shabeellaha Dhexe region in the mid-1980s when it was separated from the Benadir region .
In the Somali civil war , which has been going on since 1991 , the warlord Mohammed Omar Habeb Dheere had his power base in Jowhar. In 2004, the city, together with Baidoa, became the provisional capital of the Somali transitional government , as the actual capital Mogadishu was under the control of various rival clan leaders and warlords and was too unsafe. Part of the transitional parliament was located in Jowhar. However, in February 2006, Interim President Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed and Prime Minister Ali Mohammed Ghedi left the city, and on July 13 of the same year Jowhar was captured by the Union of Islamic Courts . On December 26, troops from the transitional government and neighboring Ethiopia recaptured Jowhar.
In 2007, Jowhar was targeted by internally displaced persons fleeing fighting between pro-government forces and anti-government militias in Mogadishu . In early 2008, Islamists and other opponents of Ethiopia and the transitional government took the city several times for a short time. In April of the same year, they took permanent control, began night patrols and, according to their own account, arrested bandits. An Islamic court of law was set up in the city in May.
Web links
Remarks
- ↑ bevölkerungsstatistik.de (2007 calculation)
- ^ IM Lewis: Review of La Somalia e l'Opera del Duca degli Abruzzi by Clelia Maino , in: Journal of the International African Institute , Vol. 30, No. 2 (April 1960)
- ↑ IRIN News: Somalia: Malnutrition stalks once fertile region
- ↑ Shabelle Media Network: Islamists detain gangs in Jowhar town ( page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as broken. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ Garowe Online: Somalia: Islamic Court opened near Mogadishu ( Memento of the original from June 3, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
Coordinates: 2 ° 47 ' N , 45 ° 30' E