SUMMARY

In the late 1980s the Government of Somalia was facing an armed uprising from several different rebel groups. One of the strongest of these groups was SNM (Somali National Movement). SNM was primarily based within the Isaaq clan, a clan that mostly resides in the north of Somalia which has previously been referred to as British Somaliland and, since 1991, has been the internationally unrecognized Republic of Somaliland. As a response to the uprising soldiers in the Somali army started to target and kill civilian members of the Isaaq population. The attacks took place in the form of execution like massacres, involving dozens, and sometimes even hundreds of members of the Isaaq clan. The persecution caused heavy streams of refugees from the region and one of the masterminds behind the attacks is said to have been General Siad Hersi Morgan, the son in law of then-President Siyad Barre, who later became a well-known warlord and a leading figure of SNF (Somali National Front) and SPM (Somali Patriotic Movement).

In 1991, Siyad Barre was overthrown and the United Somali Congress (USC) grabbed the presidency. In the months following the ousting of Barre there was much turmoil regarding who was to govern the country and in this turmoil many civilians were killed. In particular USC militias, now representing the Government of Somalia, were reported to attack members of the Darod clan, particularly members of Barre’s subclan Marehan.

By 2011, Somalia was still a country ravaged by conflict. The Transitional Federal Government (TFG) had been instated a few years prior and for the first time controlled large parts of the capital Mogadishu by late 2011. The insecurity in the city, however, remained high and with increasing numbers of IDPs arrived in the city, due to an extreme drought causing famine in the country. The low-paid, and sometimes unpaid, soldiers of the TFG have been reported to loot food distributions and to set up illegal roadblocks and taxing people passing. Those who did not collaborate, sometimes, had to pay the ultimate price.

The Government of Somalia first became active as a one-sided actor in UCDP data in 1989, when the one-sided violence resulted in over 25 civilian deaths. The threshold was reached in January that year when government troops massacred at least 500 members of the Isaaq clan in northern Somalia.