Puntland State of Somalia in Pictures

[General Duke]

Puntland State of Somalia in Pictures

- Friday, September 10, 2004 at 07:01

 

Garowe, 09.09.04 (AllPuntland) – While the international community might have relegated Somalia to a league of its own as the only nation specifiable as a failed state in the world, Somalis have proved otherwise.

 

Ingenuity in conceiving trade relations in the midst of chaos with communication towers, great seats of learning, medical centres and modern private clinics in major cities, Somalia in no longer the Cinderella of the dark Continent.

 

Hotels and resorts fit for tourist, shopping sites, and a rich countryside ripe for exploration, Somalia in its semi-dessert backdrop offers a unique topography with the longest coastline in Africa after South Africa perched on the Red Sea on one corner with the Indian Ocean on the other.

Property development at its highest in the history of the country with villas and multi-storey business establishments mushrooming across the nation, Somalia receives an estimated annual funds remittance of $400 million in hard currency from its Diaspora communities. With such large injection of capital which lubricates the local economy, employment is created and areas deprived of development under the former governments had witnessed growth in terms of social and human capital.

 

Discovering foreign markets while exploring new technologies, shrewd business community brings in new ways of doing business and improving traditional way of life. Mobile phones, notebooks, wireless technology, radio frequency, Wi-Fi and microwave technologies had found its way into Somalia with broadband Internet connectivity availed in major cities. Through resilience against all odds and self-reliance on the part of its citizens, Somalia today is no longer the nation it were a decade ago.

 

With its young returning to the country, its educated forfeiting cosy life in foreign land, and its workforce poised to return to partake in the reconstruction of the county, Somalia has turned a new page in its overcast history.

 

Somalia, it appears is being granted a new lease of life by a mixture of positively unique proceedings that appeared absent in the country’s recent history. There are however pockets still regarded volatile in some parts of the country, but two-thirds of Somalia is relatively stable and could be expected to remain so. The ongoing Somali peace talks, which has entered its final leg with a Chairperson for the National Assembly soon to be elected and a 275-member parliament being sworn in, has raised the hopes of the ordinary people in the Horn nation.

 

Certain parts of Somalia have blossomed while others might have not been as providential. Puntland State of Somalia, an autonomous enclave with functional parliament and government is one of the regions that had enjoyed a relative growth. Schools, hospitals, water supply, electricity, and other amenities have been operational by way of private and public composition. The private sector like other parts of Somalia has noticeable progressed offering services ordinarily provided by government agencies.

 

The port city of Bosaso, the commercial hub servicing most of Somalia with an estimated 650,000 residents most of which migrated from southern regions of Somalia as a result of the civil war is sprawling with business all day long. On the banks of the Read Sea, the lights hardly go out in Bosaso day and night. You could hardly find your way through the city centre with its narrow roads and streets packed with traffic. It is orderly and has all the signs of a modern city except you find no traffic lights, even though its traffic wardens and police do a terrific job of keeping the city on its toes.

 

 

Garowe and Lascaanod are relatively quite with not as much people and trading going on. Galkayo however is a city with similar business dealings as Bosaso despite the fact that it has neither a port nor is it as populous. Falling strategically at the heart of Somalia linking southern regions to the eastern and western regions of Somalia, in Galkayo you could find almost anything one desires from fresh fruits and vegetables to the latest brand in electronics and footwear to the latest designer clothes to furniture and construction gear.

 

Here we present pictorial view of various scenery in Puntland State of Somalia compiled in one of our reporters recent visit to Puntland State.

 

We will make efforts to gather similar pictures of other parts of Somalia.

 

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