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3.Crippling Effects of the Ethiopian Occupation on the Somali Socio-Economic System
Five months before the Ethiopian invasion and occupation, there were only 400,000 protracted internally displaced persons (IDPs) resulting from the then 16 years civil war and 1.4 million people affected by droughts and river alluvial floods – altogether 1.8 millions in acute food and livelihood crisis and humanitarian emergency according to the UN (FAO 31/8/06).
Unfortunately, the above described relatively thriving unique Somali socio-economic modus vivendi system has began to collapse after the Ethiopian occupation troops and its allied TFG government had occupied in the Somali capital and other south-central regions from December 2006 and almost totally destroyed the main emporium and backbone of the Somali economy in Mogadishu city during the two years of 2007 and 2008. Thousands of homes, countless businesses, moveable properties, money, many thriving markets and their goods including the famous Bakaraha Market (which was the financial and stock centre for whole of Somalia), and many educational and health institutions, etc., etc. worthy of many hundreds of millions if not in the billions (because nobody yet formally estimated) have been destroyed. As a result over a million people have been dispossessed and displaced from the city while the rest of the remaining population have also been completely or partially dispossessed. In addition the local traditional social solidarity system and charity networks on which millions depended have been destroyed and disrupted too. Mogadishu, the thriving main economic nerve and hub of the country which used to both supply and draw economically from all parts of the country, neighbouring countries and the Emirates and other countries, has mostly become a deserted ghost city.
