Somali Banadir Community of Erie,Pa

Somali Banadir Network: The Somali Banadir Network was established to assist the minority Somali Banadiri refugees and asylum seekers, who fled to the U.S. to escape the Somali Civil War.The organization has established around the United States. The Erie, Pennsylvania branch was founded in August 1996. Omar Nur serves as the chairman of the Somali Banadir Community of Erie,Pa.

[sombanadirnetwork-blog]

Rebuilding Banadir Community in America

The Banadir identity as an independent minority and places an emphases on family, education, and entrepreneurship so deeply ingrained within their culture are perhaps the greatest assets they bring to the challenge of rebuilding their lives in America. Those assisting the Banadir in this process should not be surprised if spontaneous cooperation emerges only within existing family and clan structures and not in the wider community of refugees from Somalia living in the United States. Although the Banadir should be given the opportunity to make connections and despite hundreds of years of living in proximity-there is not much more than the Sunni Muslim religion and related Somali ethnic majority. To the contrary. the Somali people and their clans are viewed by the Bandiris as the perpetrators of the lawlessness and destruction which caused them to lose everything and flee for their lives. In seeing themselves as the founders of the structures of commerce, education, and culture in Somalia, structures of civilization which endured for a millennium, the Banadiris can see in the events of the past five years the tragic completion of the Somali conquest of non- Somali peoples which began centuries ago.

[sombanadirnetwork-blog]

Somalia's Civil War and the Banadir Exodus

European colonial interests- The British in the North and the Italians in the South- advanced into Somalia in the 1880s. After World War II, colonialism gave way ti less formal control by Great Britain and Italy, and in 1960, with United Nations support, the two former colonies joined and became independent as the Somali Democratic Republic. But the stability of this nation did not last long. An alliance between the main ethnic Somali clans broke down in 1969, and in the 1970s Somalia fought Ethiopia over Somali-claimed territory as a civil war developed at home. The struggle for clan dominance became a war to control Somalia's resources: rich agricultural land in the south and coastal export centers. 

By 1991, fighting in Mogadishu intensified: the Banadiris were living at ground zero. Their homes and businesses were ravaged in the crossfire, and as prosperous,neutral, and unarmed minority they became the victims of all parties to the war.Many Banadir families experienced severe violence, including the rape of their wives and daughters by Somali clan soldiers or bandits. Life savings and other material wealth were looted or destroyed. Those Banadir who could fled from their lands, over land or by boat to Kismayo to the south and then into Kenya. Some did not survive their flight, dying at sea or along the land route; others became victims of malaria after reaching refugee camps in Kenya (some who were allowed to resettle in the US) Many Banadir families experienced the death of a family member. By 1994, the Banadir community existed only in exile.