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Somaliland is upping its pressure on the international community to grant it recognition in her for self-determination.
President Muse Bihi in his virtual speech to the nation during the 29th anniversary since separating with Somalia said not even the coronavirus could stop Somalilanders in different countries from celebrating the country’s “independence”.
Bougainville moved a step closer to becoming an independent nation on Wednesday (Dec 11) after results from a referendum showed an overwhelming majority want the province to cut its ties with Papua New Guinea.
More than 176,000 of the 181,000 voters who participated in the two-week referendum that concluded on Dec 6 supported independence, with about 3,000 choosing greater autonomy under Papua New Guinea, the Bougainville Referendum Commission said.
The Pacific people of Bougainville will on Saturday begin voting in a referendum to decide if they want to become the world’s newest nation by gaining independence from Papua New Guinea.
The referendum will run over two weeks and is a key part of a 2001 peace agreement that ended a civil war in which at least 15,000 people died in the cluster of islands to the east of the Papua New Guinea mainland.
To most, a functionally independent country that lies in the northern part of modern Somalia with a separate government, education system, and even a coast guard would be something out of a fantasy novel. However, Somaliland, hidden on the Horn of Africa, is exactly that.
Its four million people declared independence in 1991—the second time they have done so since the colonial period—and have established a robust democracy that has seen peaceful transfers of power between political rivals in 2002 and 2010.
An attack this weekend by Boko Haram fighters on a funeral in Maiduguri, Borno State, has left 65 people dead, almost triple the initial toll, a local official said Sunday.
Dozens more bodies were discovered following the assault Saturday by gunmen on Gajiram village, close to the regional capital Maiduguri.