Floods resulting from recent torrential rains unearthed an unspecified number of skeletons dumped in a shallow mass grave in the Togdheer regional capital of Burao, on the eastern parts of the Republic of Somaliland.
Citizens living outside the city first reported a number of skulls dumped on river banks by floods.
Following the trail upstream, the badly ravaged grave was discovered.
Much of the remains were washed away by the floods but what had been found still grouped together in the shallow mass grave was enough to run shivers up any one’s spine.
What remained of the clothing of the victims, especially shirts worn, showed bullet holes on the backs and chest.
A member of the Burao local Council, the Honourable Mubarak Bidhi, called on Somalilanders to learn from what happened in the past.
“I would specifically call on Somaliland youth who were born after the late 80s to look up their history and stop flaunting the flag on whose name tens of thousands of innocent civilians were persecuted in one of the most under-reported genocides in modern history,” he said.
Councillor Bidhi was referring to a number of youngsters who are suspected of being funded by Mogadishu to defy the Somaliland cause in derisive practical rebellion against the 1991 all-clan proclamation of Somaliland’s restoration of independence. The youngsters said to be part of a Somalia-driven subterfuge program called the Somali Society Integration Program (SSIP), run from the Somalia Deputy Prime Minister’s office, aims to drum up support for Somalia inside Somaliland itself.
One such young ‘flaunter’ was apprehended in Hargeisa a week or so before.
A number of other mass graves had been discovered in other major cities but triple if not more of the number unearthed are yet to be found in light of the thousands and thousands of people rounded up by the brutal military regime of Siyad Barre who were never seen again – dead or alive.
