Somalia

SOMALIA. - Somalia corresponds to the triangular projection of East Africa bounded by the Gulf of Aden, the Indian Ocean and the course of the Juba.

I. GEOGRAPHY

The country presents itself as a series of terraces which, from the mountainous rim of Ethiopia continuing from the Ogaden to Cape Guardafui, slope down onto the broad and flat coastal strip, bordered by chains of dunes. The climate is sub-desertic monsoonal, with high temperatures, strong diurnal temperature ranges and scant rainfall, limited to the summer period. The dominant landscape is scrub or steppe, the latter predominant in the N., where the conditions of aridity become more pronounced, while along the mountainous rim the precipitation is more abundant, and the climate is healthier. On the whole, S. is a country of livestock-raising and of nomads; agriculture is possible there only where water is available (wells and above all irrigation from the only two rivers that cross S., the Uebi Scebeli and the Giuba), and industry has very scant prospects, given the absolute lack of mineral resources (except salt and a little tin) and of sources of energy. Over the vast territory (more than 700,000 sq. km.) live barely 1.6 million inhabitants, almost all Ethiopians, divided into Galla, mostly farmers and sedentary people of the interior, and Somali on the coast, predominantly pastoralists, both groups Muslim.

Besides the natural products (incense and gums), it yields above all cotton, sugar cane, bananas, sesame, castor oil and groundnuts; the cereals (dura and maize) serve for local food. The capital of Italian S. is Mogadishu (55,000 inhabitants, of whom 2,500 Italians). On the Gulf of Aden look the territory (176,000 sq. km.) of British S. (protectorate), on which live 700,000 inhabitants, overwhelmingly pastoralists, and which has as its capital Berbera (20,000 inhabitants), and the small (21,000 sq. km.) Ethiopian strip (strictly speaking outside S. proper) of the so-called French S., which counts 46,000 inhabitants and extends around Djibouti (17,000 inhabitants), where the only railway that penetrates onto the Abyssinian plateau begins. At 150 miles from Cape Guardafui, in the Indian Ocean, is the Island of Socotra, the extreme north-eastern tip of S. Broad and desertic in its western part, the island is mountainous and covered with scrub in its eastern part. The population (12,000 inhabitants, Arabs, Indians, Somalis) cultivates the date palm and aloe, and raises free-range livestock there. The capital is Tamarida (1,500 inhabitants).

Socotra is part of the sultanate of Mara or Qishni, included in the eastern protectorate of Aden.

Giuseppe Caraci

II. CIVIL HISTORY

The vicissitudes of Somalia before the spread of Islam are shrouded in obscurity. The hypothesis formulated by some scholars that the so-called land of Punt, mentioned in inscriptions of ancient pharaonic Egypt, was to be identified with the northern regions of Somalia does not rest on certain data.

More reliable are the reports concerning the Muslim expansion, which seems to have begun from the neighboring Arabian peninsula in the 7th century, when followers of Muhammad, coming from Yemen, established on the other shore of the Gulf of Aden a sultanate with its center at Zeila, in present-day British Somaliland. Three centuries later it appears that another wave of Arabs set foot for the first time in Italian Somaliland and founded the cities of Mogadishu and Brava. Mogadishu shortly thereafter became the most important center of the region and toward the middle of the 12th century the seat of a hereditary sultanate. At the dawn of the modern age there are vague reports of a Kingdom of Adel, extending along the coasts of British Somaliland and comprising the ports of Zeila and Berbera, a kingdom which in the course of the 16th century expanded as far as Harrar, only to be subsequently destroyed by invasions of Galla populations. After a very temporary and purely nominal Portuguese occupation of Mogadishu and Brava, carried out respectively in 1503 and 1507 by Tristão da Cunha, the very possibility of which was in itself clear evidence of the decline of Arab rule, there was an awakening of the native population which, perhaps in the 17th century, destroyed Mogadishu. Around the same period the Kingdom of Adel disintegrated, and several independent emirates and sultanates took its place. Brief, after the Portuguese one of the early years of the 16th century, was also the occupation of the centers of the southern Somali coast by an envoy of the emir of Oman, which in reality had the sole purpose of asserting nominal rights of sovereignty over those lands, rights later passed, as heirs of the sultans of Oman, to those of Zanzibar. The first European power to take an interest in Somalia was Great Britain. With the aim of making the route to the Indies secure by acquiring a landing place for ships, England in fact concluded agreements in 1840 with the Sultans of Tajura and Zeila.

Shortly thereafter France under Napoleon III also extended its dominion over the region of the Gulf of Aden, concluding in 1862 a Convention with the Sultan of Tajura by virtue of which, in exchange for the payment of 1000 thalers, it took possession of Obock and an adjoining coastal strip of about 200 km. on the Gulf of Tajura. However, the English and French occupation of these territories acquired a truly lasting and political character only toward the end of the century. It was the Mahdi's uprising in the Sudan that pushed the two powers to extend their sovereignty over the hinterland of the Somali ports in order to prevent the hordes of that fanatic from seizing them suddenly. In 1884 the Third Republic accordingly concluded conventions with the Sultans of Tajura and Gobad by which it took possession of the entire Gulf of Tajura and extended its dominion over the coast as far as beyond Djibouti. The following year the protectorate over the sultanate of the Issa guaranteed to that same France influence over the hinterland to a depth of about 200 km. In the same year 1884 England occupied the ports of Zeila, Bulhar and Berbera, and conventions stipulated in the following years with the local sultans served to strengthen these bridgeheads. On the remaining coasts not yet subject to European influence, Italy asserted its own protectorate. The first sultan to request Italian protection was that of Obbia (Feb. 1889), followed a few weeks later, in Apr., by that of the Migiurtini. In 1891 the English and Italian spheres of influence were delimited, and the entire region east of the Juba River, with the territories of Merca, Brava and Mogadishu, was assigned to Italy. The boundaries with British Somaliland were instead fixed in 1894. The year after the delimitation of the spheres of influence, in 1892, Italy had also come into possession of the coastal region situated between the mouth of the Juba and the protectorate of Obbia by means of a convention with the Sultan of Zanzibar, who exercised sovereignty over those lands, in exchange for the payment of an annual fee; only thirteen years later, in 1905, however, would Italy acquire full sovereignty over that region and exercise its direct dominion there. Having promulgated in 1908 the law on the administrative organization of the colony, headed by a civil governor, Italian Somaliland in the same year also had its boundaries toward Ethiopia defined following a treaty stipulated with the negus Menelik. In the following decades steps were taken to normalize and pacify the colony promoting in particular its agricultural development with very encouraging results. During the Second World War Italian S. was occupied by British imperial forces under the command of General A. G. Cunningham in the first months of 1941. In the same period England also regained by force of arms possession of British S., which had been occupied by Italy in Aug. 1940. French S., on the other hand, kept under the orders of the Vichy government until Dec. 1943, passed on the 28th of that month to the side of General De Gaulle. Following the Paris Peace Treaty of 1947, Italy renounced, under the terms of art. 23, its sovereignty over S., of which nevertheless the United Nations on 21 Nov. 1949 entrusted it with the trusteeship administration for ten years, after which the region will be constituted as an independent State.

Silvio Furlani

III. EVANGELIZATION

1. British S

It depends on the apostolic vicariate of Arabia with its seat at Aden, and not before 1891 were the Capuchins able to work there. A residence was erected at Berbera and another at Shimbafaleh. But in 1910 the English government removed the missionaries, forbidding any activity among the Islamic Somalis. Only in 1931 were missionaries again permitted to exercise from time to time the ministry among the Catholics living there.

2. French S

It belonged to the apostolic vicariate of Galla. A small station had been erected at Djibouti. When the missionaries and Christians were expelled from British S., they found refuge at Urso in French S. In 1913 a third station was founded at Daudah. In 1914 Djibouti was erected into an apostolic prefecture and entrusted to the Capuchins. The mission in the 3 stations counted altogether 150 Christians, when in 1915 it was restricted to the station of Djibouti. In 1925 a part of the vicariate of Galla, Ethiopian S., was united to the prefecture of Djibouti and 4 stations were erected there. On the occasion of the new organization of the Ethiopian missions in 1937 the prefecture of Djibouti was restricted to French S. and depends on the apostolic delegation of Dakar (v. GIBUTI).

BIBL: Clemente da Terzorio, Le missioni dei Minori Capp., X. Africa, Rome 1938, pp. 219-26; various authors, Dijbouti, in Grandi Laci, 62 (1946-47), pp. 64.

3. Italian S

In 1904 it was erected into an apostolic prefecture under the name of Benadir and entrusted to the Trinitarians. The Italian governor Mercatelli, however, did not grant access to the missionaries, who therefore had to found the first station on the border in British S. Only after 1906, the governor hostile to the missions having been recalled, were they able to establish themselves at Brava and Dhelih, limiting their activity almost exclusively to the ministry among the Italian colonists. This was the only work of the Missionaries of the Consolata, who took over the prefecture in 1924, elevated to an apostolic vicariate in 1927 under the name of Mogadishu, and of the Franciscans to whom it was transferred in 1930. Among the Muslim Somalis progress is very slow and therefore the number of indigenous Catholics in 1939 was 270 out of 13,350 in all. It is very probable that this number has not increased much among the 3340 Catholic Italian colonists (v. MOGADISCIO).

Giovanni Rommerskirchen

IV. - CONDIZIONE GIURIDICA DELLA CHIESA. - The apostolic vicariate of Mogadishu, which during the war had suffered considerably from a shortage of personnel, has been gradually recovering. Today the mission enjoys full freedom of action and is on excellent terms with the local Italian authorities. Naturally, being in a Muslim country, missionary activity consists above all, with regard to the natives, in a work of penetration by means of schools, orphanages, hospitals and in the exercise of other works of charity, which are most effective arguments for an orientation toward the religion of Christ. Thus, in moments very difficult for that colony, the Catholic mission proved to be an irreplaceable element for the work of pacification intended by the civil government. - See inv. LXII.

Carlo Corvo