Inferno destroys market in breakaway Somalia region

This aerial view shoes plumes of smoke billowing from the site of a fire that broke out at the Waaheen market in Hargeisa, Somaliland.

A massive blaze has destroyed the central market in the northern Somali city of Hargeisa, wiping out hundreds of small businesses, officials said yesterday. Fierce flames tore through the Waheen open market late on Friday, sending huge clouds of smoke billowing into the night sky over Hargeisa, the capital of the breakaway region of Somaliland. The cause of the inferno that engulfed the sprawling market – the economic heart of the city and home to an estimated 2,000 shops and stalls – is not yet known. Officials have issued urgent appeals for help to recover from the disaster that injured more than two dozen people and is certain to inflict further hardship on thousands more in the impoverished city. “The town has never witnessed such a massive calamity,” Hargeisa’s mayor Abdikarim Ahmed Moge told reporters at the scene. Firefighters battled the flames for hours before the blaze was largely brought under control yesterday, as the overwhelmingly Sunni Muslim country joined Muslims around the world in ushering in the holy month of Ramadan. Images of the aftermath in and around Waheen showed charred and blackened buildings with their windows blown out. Somalia’s President Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed, better known by his nickname Farmajo, telephoned Somaliland president Muse Bihi Abdi, his office said on Twitter. “I call on all Somalis wherever they are to extend their assistance to those affected by the disaster,” Farmajo was quoted as saying. Abdi said about 28 people, nine of them women, were injured, but that there was no loss of life. He said the government of Somaliland – which declared independence from Somalia three decades ago – would be releasing $1mn to help with the emergency response. Hargeisa Chamber of Commerce chairman Jamal Aideed said the loss of the market was immense as it accounted for 40-50% of the city’s economy. Somaliland declared independence from Somalia in 1991, an act still unrecognised by the international community that has left the region of 4.5mn people poor and isolated.