According to Djibouti Interior Minister Said Nouh, there were several deaths on Sunday in Djibouti, the capital. What is the violence due to?
Inter-community violence or delinquency? "The manipulation of malicious individuals has provoked unprecedented violence in several districts of Djibouti," Djibouti Interior Minister Said Nouh Hassan told RTD national television after Djibouti burst into flames on Sunday. On the side of the Ministry of the Interior, we qualify what happened yesterday as "Free delinquency". According to reporters in Djibouti, the Djiboutian capital, Sunday was the scene of "intercommunal violence", which lasted all day.
https://twitter.com/Said_Nouh_H/status/1421953318084136963
Indeed, the option of "free delinquency" advanced by the Ministry of the Interior seems to be dismissed by comments on social networks. Observers say the “Afar Triangle” Liberation Front has started a war on the shores of the Red Sea in Djibouti. It would be, according to them, groups of young Afars who attacked the Issa ethnic group.
The Afar community, present in all the countries of the Horn of Africa, has been mobilizing for two weeks and a call for militarization launched by the governor of an Ethiopian region. In Djibouti, the Afars denounce police violence against them.
In Tadjoura City, Somali Issa police are shooting Afar civilians with bullets, these bullets could kill afar civilians just like they used these bullets to kill Afar civilians in Djibouti City 👇#Tadjoura #City #Djibouti pic.twitter.com/8ikW2hXNwY
- ⚔️ (@redseaomzz) August 2
But why would the violence take place in the streets of the capital, Djibouti? Civilians present were armed with axes and bladed weapons, as well as Molotov cocktails. Hundreds of homes were set on fire. The population is still wondering what could possibly have caused these deadly clashes, of which we do not know the quantified toll. The Minister of the Interior promised "that the perpetrators of the violence will be arrested".
Is the conflict in Tigray exported to Djibouti?
Several leaders therefore call for appeasement between Issas and Afars. Observers denounce "calls to hatred" from "tribalists" in an external conflict that does not concern Djibouti. The mayor of the capital, Souleiman Dahir, tries to qualify what took place on Sunday, affirming that it is about "some scuffles which will be quickly controlled by the police force".
But the possibility of a conflagration of the conflict currently unfolding in the Tigray region as far as Djibouti leaves one to fear the worst. The elites of Afar, the Ethiopian region which brings together members of the ethnic group of the same name, have in recent days called on the populations to form militias. Their objective is, without a doubt, to send civilians to fight in Tigray after the defeat of the regular army of the Amhara region. The Afars, for their part, assure that they are protesting peacefully in Djibouti and that they are being targeted by the regime, which, according to them, will “exterminate” this ethnic group.
AFAR and ISSA, the only country we have is Djibouti. other related regions are part of other countries.
We have to protect this country or we won't have a country. #Djibouti for all, Unity is our national identity.- faysal houssein iye (@faysalhoussein) August 1