“The attack on peace and stability – Somaliland’s major marketable commodity – must be decisively contained,” Traditional Elders
In a meeting that the vast majority of traditional elders in the Marodijeex (Hargeisa) regions of Somaliland got together with the Governor, the second-in-command of the Somaliland Forces, and a number of other regional officers, a decision that will certainly make hooligans thinks twice was reached.
It was noted during the meeting that the hitherto unfamiliar operations of the youth hooligans point to a hand or hands that wish to see Somaliland’s only marketable commodity – peace and stability – brought to its knees in a crumbling heap.
The traditional leaders unanimously declared that no blood price will be asked of a hooligan killed in any of the police operations to be undertaken to contain high-school age hooligans that have of late marauded the cities of Somaliland robbing people of their cell phones, cash and waging area wars against one another.
The youth, usually armed with machettes and Pangas were found out to be predominantly high school kids who have developed expensive habits such as qat-chewing, marijuana and the like. The kids would gather on street corners and darker spots of the districts and terrorize pedestrians.
Source close to the police forces revealed that the gangs have come to a stage where they demanded protection money from businesses in their respective or else reluctant businesses and their patrons receive the brunt of their ‘wrath’. It was pay or be pillaged kind of situation that encouraged more and more of the truants to take part in the easy money gathered this way. None of the people involved were vagabonds or homeless miscreants but kids whose three meals and a warm bed was assured at home with their parents – parents who – mostly – knew very little of their kids were doing outside.
Of late, the Somaliland police units have waged a counter offensive that put hundreds of these ‘hooligan gangs’ behind bars with sentences ranging from six months to one year.
Watch the traditional leaders meeting at the Gubernatorial HQ of Maroodijeex:
