# 1991–1999: Collapse, local peacemaking, UN era and faction talks

> After the state collapsed in 1991, Somalis rebuilt from the ground up. Elders made peace in the north, business people funded courts and phone and money netw…

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Last checked: 2026-11-12
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- **Jul 1991.** First Djibouti conference names Ali Mahdi interim president. It is not implemented: representation was not comprehensive, delegates did not control militias, and Aidid rejected the result. Fighting follows in Mogadishu in Nov 1991. **Actors:** Djibouti; USC factions (Ali Mahdi, Aidid) **What it meant for unity:** First regional attempt at a national authority after collapse. It showed that agreement among armed leaders was needed for implementation Source: [B27](https://africaportal.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/Mediation_Efforts_in_Somalia.pdf)
- **Jan – 18 May 1991.** SNM takes Berbera, Hargeisa and Burco (Jan 1991). Under pressure from a Grand Conference in Burco, the north-west revokes the 1960 Act of Union and declares the Republic of Somaliland on 18 May. No other Somali faction was consulted. The SNM receives a two-year transitional mandate under Abdirahman Ahmed Ali "Tuur" **Actors:** SNM; northern clan elders **What it meant for unity:** The north takes a separate path, through a clan conference rather than through armed rule Source: [B45](https://www.progressio.org.uk/sites/progressio.org.uk/files/Somaliland-Country-Report-Mark-Bradbury.pdf); [B8](https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/58088/1/final_report-final_2010_04_12.pdf)
- **1991–1992.** Elders' peace meetings in the north: fighting in Bureo (Jan 1992) and Berbera (Mar–Oct 1992, over the port) is handled through elders' mediation. The Sheekh conference is the "turning point", with prisoner and marriage exchanges. **Actors:** Guurti (council of elders); Habar Yonis; Isa Musa; other northern clans **What it meant for unity:** Customary law (*xeer*), sheikhs and poets build trust without a state; local conferences are funded by community self-help. Bradbury dates the Sheekh settlement to Oct 1992 Source: [B7](https://arcadia.sba.uniroma3.it/bitstream/2307/3215/1/Making%20peace%20in%20Somaliland.pdf); [B45](https://www.progressio.org.uk/sites/progressio.org.uk/files/Somaliland-Country-Report-Mark-Bradbury.pdf)
- **Nov 1991 – Feb 1992.** USC splits: Interim President Ali Mahdi and Gen. Aidid, both Hawiye and USC, fight in Mogadishu over the presidency, sub-clan loyalty and looted property. Africa Watch and Physicians for Human Rights estimate 14,000 killed and 27,000 injured. **Actors:** USC (Ali Mahdi; Aidid) **What it meant for unity:** The movement that removed Barre divides, and the capital is split Source: [B44](https://www.hrw.org/legacy/reports/1993/WR93/Afw-08.htm)
- **1992.** Famine: Africa Watch estimates up to 300,000 deaths by mid-1992, with Baidoa and Baardheere among the worst camps. Food aid is a target for looting, including systematic looting by the SNF (Marehan, Barre loyalists) in Bay, Gedo and Juba. The UN says famine threatened 1.5 million and nearly 1 million became refugees. UNOSOM I is set up in April 1992 after a January arms embargo. **Actors:** SNF; SPM; USC factions; UN Security Council **What it meant for unity:** International involvement begins in response to mass hunger Source: [B44](https://www.hrw.org/legacy/reports/1993/WR93/Afw-08.htm); [B5](https://peacekeeping.un.org/mission/past/unosom2backgr2.html)
- **8 Dec 1992.** Killings of Harti clan members in Kismayo by supporters of Col. Omar Jess (over 100 dead), followed by recurring Jess–Morgan clashes into 1994. **Actors:** Jess and Morgan factions **What it meant for unity:** Southern port cities become contested between factions Source: [B33](https://www.refworld.org/docid/3ae6a80610.html)
- **Dec 1992.** Res. 794 authorises the US-led UNITAF. Aid flows again by year's end. On 26–28 Dec Aidid and Ali Mahdi appear together to mark the dismantling of Mogadishu's "green line" **Actors:** UN; US; Aidid; Ali Mahdi **What it meant for unity:** Brief public reconciliation of the two Mogadishu leaders Source: [B5](https://peacekeeping.un.org/mission/past/unosom2backgr2.html); [B33](https://www.refworld.org/docid/3ae6a80610.html)
- **Jan 1993.** Informal Addis Ababa meeting: 14 Somali movements agree to a ceasefire and to hand over weapons (signed 15 Jan). **Actors:** UN; Ethiopia; factions **What it meant for unity:** Ceasefire and disarmament put on paper for the first time Source: [B5](https://peacekeeping.un.org/mission/past/unosom2backgr2.html); [B33](https://www.refworld.org/docid/3ae6a80610.html)
- **15–27 Mar 1993.** Addis Ababa National Reconciliation Conference: 15 movements sign a two-year transition with a 74-member Transitional National Council, regional councils in 18 regions, district councils and disarmament. The parties and the UN read its selection procedures differently. **Actors:** UN; Ethiopia; 15 movements **What it meant for unity:** A bottom-up (district/region) design for a national authority. It stayed the main reference point for Somali politics into the mid-1990s Source: [B5](https://peacekeeping.un.org/mission/past/unosom2backgr2.html); [B27](https://africaportal.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/Mediation_Efforts_in_Somalia.pdf)
- **Jan/Feb – Jun 1993.** Boorama conference in the north, nearly four months (Farah and Lewis: opened 24 Feb; Bradbury: Jan–May). About 150 elders formed the voting National Guurti; Farah and Lewis count nearly 700 participants, Bradbury about 2,000 involved in some way. It adopts a Peace Charter (security, demobilisation) and a National Charter with a bicameral legislature (unelected Guurti, elected representatives). The Guurti appoints Egal president in June 1993. Funding was mainly Somali; Farah and Lewis note over $100,000 in international support, while Bradbury says UNOSOM gave none. **Actors:** Guurti; northern clans; Egal **What it meant for unity:** Elders are written into the structure of government. Peace and state-building in the north rest on clan consensus Source: [B7](https://arcadia.sba.uniroma3.it/bitstream/2307/3215/1/Making%20peace%20in%20Somaliland.pdf); [B45](https://www.progressio.org.uk/sites/progressio.org.uk/files/Somaliland-Country-Report-Mark-Bradbury.pdf); [B8](https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/58088/1/final_report-final_2010_04_12.pdf)
- **26 Mar 1993.** Res. 814 creates UNOSOM II under Chapter VII. **Actors:** UN Security Council **What it meant for unity:** The UN takes on nation-building tasks Source: [B5](https://peacekeeping.un.org/mission/past/unosom2backgr2.html)
- **5 Jun – 3 Oct 1993.** 25 Pakistani peacekeepers killed in south Mogadishu (5 Jun). Res. 837 (6 Jun). On 3 Oct a US operation leaves 18 US soldiers dead and 75 wounded. Many Somalis were also killed (see file 02, S22). **Actors:** UNOSOM II; US; SNA (Aidid) **What it meant for unity:** The UN and Aidid's SNA become parties to the conflict. Outside appetite for nation-building falls Source: [B5](https://peacekeeping.un.org/mission/past/unosom2backgr2.html); [B33](https://www.refworld.org/docid/3ae6a80610.html)
- **1993–1995.** Egal government revives ministries, a civil service commission and the central bank; introduces a new currency; organises police and customs; re-establishes courts; pays salaries, mostly with minimal external aid. Sanaag elders adopt a regional Peace Charter (Oct 1993). **Actors:** Somaliland government; Sanaag elders; businessmen **What it meant for unity:** Northern institutions rebuilt largely from local resources Source: [B45](https://www.progressio.org.uk/sites/progressio.org.uk/files/Somaliland-Country-Report-Mark-Bradbury.pdf)
- **1994.** Fighting in Hargeisa after the Habar Yonis oppose Egal's election spreads to Burao. Up to 150,000 people flee Hargeisa. **Actors:** Somaliland government; Habar Yonis **What it meant for unity:** The northern consensus is tested Source: [B8](https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/58088/1/final_report-final_2010_04_12.pdf)
- **24 Mar 1994.** Nairobi: Aidid and Ali Mahdi sign a ceasefire and voluntary-disarmament declaration. **Actors:** SNA; Ali Mahdi's 12-faction alliance **What it meant for unity:** Two-bloc politics (SNA vs Group of 12) is formally acknowledged Source: [B33](https://www.refworld.org/docid/3ae6a80610.html)
- **1994 onward.** Mogadishu's Hawiye business community begins funding clan-based Islamic courts to cut transaction costs and settle disputes. The first Mogadishu Islamic court is set up in Madina district after 1993. **Actors:** Business people; clan elders; local clerics **What it meant for unity:** Local rule of law grows without a state, organised clan by clan Source: [B30](https://archive.munkschool.utoronto.ca/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/Aisha-Ahmad-The-Security-Bazaar.pdf); [B10](https://www.crisisgroup.org/sites/default/files/somalia-s-islamists.pdf)
- **1994–1995.** Private satellite telephone firms are introduced (1994–95). Hawala remittance networks, begun in the early 1990s over HF radio, become de facto financial institutions. **Actors:** Somali traders; diaspora; hawala firms **What it meant for unity:** A national, and diaspora-wide, commercial network operates across clan and regional lines Source: [B28](https://www.theeastafrican.co.ke/news/-/2558/1024802/-/oo5m22z/-/index.html)
- **2 Mar 1995.** UNOSOM II withdrawal completed (mandate ended under Res. 954). The UN credits the 1992–95 effort with at least about a quarter of a million lives saved, 52 of 92 district councils, 8 of 18 regional councils, about 8,000 police and 46 district courts. **Actors:** UN **What it meant for unity:** Local councils and courts are a legacy of the UN period. A national authority is not Source: [B5](https://peacekeeping.un.org/mission/past/unosom2backgr2.html)
- **1995.** Rahanweyn Resistance Army (RRA) formed to resist Aidid's forces in the Bay region. **Actors:** RRA (Digil-Mirifle/Rahanweyn) **What it meant for unity:** Inter-riverine communities gain their own armed political voice Source: [B36](https://mappingmilitants.org/profiles/rahanwein-resistance-army)
- **9 Aug 1996; Jan 1997.** Ethiopian raids on al-Itihaad bases at Luuq and Buulo Haawa (Gedo). Al-Itihaad had run Luuq since Aug 1992 through an "Islamic Association" and a sharia court. **Actors:** Ethiopia; al-Itihaad al-Islamiya **What it meant for unity:** Ends al-Itihaad's territorial project. By 2005 Crisis Group calls it "a spent force" Source: [B10](https://www.crisisgroup.org/sites/default/files/somalia-s-islamists.pdf)
- **Late 1996 – early 1997.** Sodere (Ethiopia) conference sets up a National Salvation Council using a clan split close to what became "4.5". The formula was first conceived in 1997. **Actors:** Ethiopia; factions **What it meant for unity:** Seeds of the clan-quota power-sharing model Source: [B2](https://riftvalley.net/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/Role-of-4.5-in-democratisation-and-governence-in-Somalia_EN_4.5_WEB.pdf); [B23](https://www.c-r.org/accord/legitimacy-and-peace-processes/somalia-legitimacy-provisional-constitution); [B27](https://africaportal.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/Mediation_Efforts_in_Somalia.pdf)
- **1997.** Hargeisa conference addresses Habar Yonis grievances; Burao fighting ends. Somaliland described as peaceful since. **Actors:** Somaliland government; Guurti; Habar Yonis **What it meant for unity:** Northern consensus restored by a further elders' conference Source: [B8](https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/58088/1/final_report-final_2010_04_12.pdf)
- **12 Nov – 22 Dec 1997.** Cairo Declaration, co-chaired by Hussein Aideed and Ali Mahdi: Somalia "independent, indivisible", Mogadishu as capital, a "federal democratic system", a 13-member Presidential Council, a 189-seat assembly allocated 46 each to four groups plus smaller shares. Abdullahi Yusuf and Adan Abdullahi Nur Gabyow are listed as non-signatories. **Actors:** Egypt; SNA; Ali Mahdi; others **What it meant for unity:** Federalism and a four-plus clan allocation appear in a signed text, under a sponsor rival to Ethiopia's Sodere process Source: [B6](https://www.peaceagreements.org/view/317/); [B27](https://africaportal.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/Mediation_Efforts_in_Somalia.pdf)
- **5 May 1998.** Garowe conference of Darood/Harti elders declares Puntland, covering seven regions. Abdullahi Yusuf is elected by elders for a four-year term. The stated approach is "building blocks" toward national unity. **Actors:** SSDF; Harti elders; Abdullahi Yusuf **What it meant for unity:** A regional state that remains officially unionist, an early model for federal member states Source: [B26](https://www.crisisgroup.org/sites/default/files/b64-somalia-the-trouble-with-puntland.pdf)
- **1999.** According to Ahmad, Mogadishu businesspeople stop paying armed faction leaders and fund court militias instead. **Actors:** Business community; courts **What it meant for unity:** Private capital starts to underwrite non-faction security Source: [B30](https://archive.munkschool.utoronto.ca/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/Aisha-Ahmad-The-Security-Bazaar.pdf)

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