Thursday, March 28, 2024
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Somali Regional State: The under-reported hell on Earth

By Mudahar Haji Ibrahim

You may not have heard about the merciless killing of Faysal Mohamed Omer, a young engineer recently executed by Abdi Iley, the Ethiopian Somali regional president.

As recent as weeks ago, Faysal was picked from his Jigjiga home on past midnight by the notorious liyuu police and taken towards Godey. On arrival at kebridahar city, he has been alighted from the police car and bundled into a khat-ferrying Toyota Pick up so as to camouflage his forthcoming demise.

somaliregion
The Somali Region of Ethiopia

At the suburbs of Dhanan, a midpoint between Godey and Kebridahr, Faysal had been strangled to death and thrown from the speeding vehicle under the full glare of his elderly father who had been in custody with him all along.

What crime had he committed to deserve this? You may ask. Nothing, and absolutely nothing other than being brother to a dissent guy who expressed his views about the ongoing protests in Amhara and Oromo regions on facebook. Some have learnt this tragedy thanks to the bravery and the astonishing courage of the victim’s brother who regularly had been sharing his family’s predicament on social media.

But how many Faysal(s) died and continue to die on similar faith and nobody gives that much qualm? Nobody knows the exact figure but we can safely assume it as myriad. Many people don’t know the whereabouts of their missing family members, whereas thousands silently buried their relatives and never dared to report for fear of further reprisal. Even those residing abroad succumbed to Abdi’s intimidation because his modus operandi is to frighten those living outside the country by holding their relatives remaining back home as accountable.

Apparently Abdi holds blank cheque from the ruling Tigray junta that permits him to violate his people’s rights capriciously. He rules on his whim and hapless civilians are his subjects that he kills and detains as much as he deems it right. As a result of that the region has became the hell’s bottom spot even by Ethiopia’s standard of democracy and respect for human right.

There is nothing so peculiar with this kind of lunacy in callous dictator like president Abdi. But the irony is the Somali media fraternity and its stakeholders keeping mum about this whole saga as nonevent. Those that ought to fight for the cause of our people are wittingly augmenting the oppressors and thus amplify our pain. Some are gagged by genuine fear but many have gone for the highest bidder.

Engineer Ahmed of Universal TV is said to have settled on luxurious contracts from the Somali regional state. And his Television network now sounds more like an offshoot of ESTV than an independent private TV as it is vehemently engaged exporting DDSI’s Goebbelist-type propaganda to a larger Somali audience.

It is also common knowledge that prominent personalities from BBC-Somali and VOA-Somali are in bed with Abdi Iley and his cronies.

No wonder Mustafe’s interview (The deceased’s brother) on VOA-Somali relating to the murder of his younger brother was deliberately procrastinated from broadcast to change the narrative in favor of the perpetrators or perhaps for other ulterior motive.

The clueless diaspora group and Somali music artists are also visibly the vultures on our bones. Dhaanto, once a beautifully entertaining game is rendered tasteless by the monotonous PR campaign it does at the behest of Iley. And the songs that ought to reflect our thoughts and aspirations as repressed people are instead now compliment to our suffering and add salt to our wounds.

But history has always the answers. And it always testifies that tyranny’s days are numbered. It is unsustainable forever and cannot prevail over justice and truth. Those sucking from the blood of our people will soon cover themselves in dust shamefully.

Mudahar Haji Ibrahim
Email: [email protected]

The writer is student at Jigjiga University.


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