Ceel Afweyn (El Afweyn)

Where it is

Ceel Afweyn is the seat of Ceel Afweyn district in western Sanaag, administered by Somaliland. It lies on the main road between Burco, about 283 km away, and Ceerigaabo, about 88 km away (Wikipedia: El Afweyn), at about 9.93°N, 47.22°E (Wikidata).

People and work

The 2005 UNDP estimate gave 12,159 people (Wikidata); a 2012 estimate gave about 60,000 (Wikipedia: El Afweyn). Most people are from the Habar Je'lo (Bi'ide) and the Habar Yonis (Saad Yonis), both Isaaq (Wikipedia: El Afweyn).

The town's economy rests on livestock. Its market is the largest in Sanaag and described as one of the largest in the Horn of Africa, drawing animals from across the Somali lands (Wikipedia: El Afweyn). See livestock exports. The town has nine primary and secondary schools, among them Aadan Abokor Qorsheel School and Nugaal Primary and Intermediate (Wikipedia: El Afweyn).

The Maduna ruins and rock art

Near Ceel Afweyn is the ruined Islamic town of Maduna, described as the largest and most accessible ruin of its kind in Somaliland. Its main feature is a large rectangular mosque whose 3 m walls still stand, with a mihrab, surrounded by partly standing houses; a large baobab tree grows on the slope below (Wikipedia: El Afweyn). Its dry-stone building style links it to Amud and Abasa and so probably to the Adal Sultanate; the archaeologist Sada Mire dates it to the 1400s to 1600s (Wikipedia: El Afweyn; Northeast African Studies, via JSTOR).

The area also has prehistoric caves, rock carvings, cairns and the rock-art site of God-Hardune. A joint Somali–Soviet expedition studied the carvings in 1972 (Wikipedia: El Afweyn).

1988

In October 1988, during the war in the north, more than 300 people in and around Ceel Afweyn were killed after an army officer died from a landmine laid by the Somali National Movement, and the town was bombed by the Somali Air Force (Human Rights Watch / Africa Watch, 1990; Wikipedia: El Afweyn). Community Aid Abroad (now Oxfam Australia) reported that many people fled the bombing and that a "scorched earth" policy was applied to villages on the Ceel Afweyn plains (Wikipedia: El Afweyn). Wikipedia places these killings within what it calls the Isaaq genocide (Wikipedia: El Afweyn).

See also the Isaaq genocide, 1987 to 1989.

Since 1991

• July 2000: Ceel Afweyn was reported as the worst-hit place in Sanaag in floods (Wikipedia: El Afweyn).
• December 2002 to April 2003: after defeat at Dhuudo, Jama Ali Jama's forces from Puntland stayed in Ceel Afweyn until the sides reconciled; they surrendered in part in March 2003 and withdrew to Bosaso in April (Wikipedia: El Afweyn).
• 2012: the Somaliland government dug a 350 m well to give safe water to more than 1,000 households (Somaliland Sun).
• 2015 to 2019: a conflict between two local communities over grazing, water and political power. A government-led delegation brokered an agreement in July 2018, fighting returned in September, and a peace deal was announced on 5 November 2019 (ReliefWeb; Horn Diplomat, 2019).
• 27 May 2020: Somaliland's environment ministry seized illegally cut timber in the district (Hargeisa Press).

Birds and people from Ceel Afweyn

Birds recorded at the town include the Egyptian vulture, the lappet-faced vulture, the squacco heron and the wattled starling (Birdquest Somaliland report). The Olympic runners Bashir Abdi of Belgium and Mohammed Ahmed of Canada have family roots in the town (Wikipedia: El Afweyn).

Sources

• Wikipedia: El Afweyn
• Wikidata Q5350699
• Human Rights Watch / Africa Watch, Somalia: A Government at War with Its Own People, 1990
• ReliefWeb, peace declaration in Ceel Afweyn
• Birdquest Somaliland trip report