EYL: HISTORICAL PEARL CITY OF SOMALIA IN DECLINE

By:-Ismail Warsame.

As you would approach Eyl Old City located in midland Indian Ocean coast of the State of Puntland, Northeast Somalia, climbing mountains and finally descending steeply on a windy road many multiple times until you drive through Old Eyl City called Daawad, the name probably after the Castle of Derwish Movement, now a dilapidated ancient strong defence block-building to protect religious/cultural/political leader, Sayid Mohamed Abdille Hassan and his fighters against the invasion of British and Italian colonial powers in the 19th century. Sayid Abdulle Hassan led armed resistance against the British, Italian, and Ethiopian troops in Somalia during colonial administrations. In Daawad, you barely see any building still standing without the scars of time and the elements. Houses are almost all dilapidated and left to ruin. Their owners either perished or moved to other parts of Somalia all the way to Mogadishu and Kismayo many years ago before and after the national independence of Somalia on July 1st, 1960. Unknown to many in Somalia, the City of Eyl has always been a metropolitan with a good number of minority clans living in harmony together for centuries. Historically, Eyl City was the administrative capital of the Italian colonial administration in Nugaal Region (now Garowe as its regional capital) of Majertainia (now Northeast Regions or Puntland State) after the fall of Derwish Movement of Sayid Mohamed Abdulle Hassan.

Again, along with one of its windy and snake-shaped streets, you would drive out of Daawad City on another windy road, passing below a high range of mountains. You would feel that huge hanging blocks of glacier-like stones on the cliff could fall any minute on the road below, crushing people and cars flate. One of these glacier-like stones is called locally, “Don’t fall on me before I pass by through.”  would take you about thirty minutes to drive to the City of Baddey (Sea-city) on the beaches of the Indian Ocean. Immediately, you would be tempted to walk bare-footed and strip-naked on the sands rarely experienced anywhere in the world – beach sands so smooth and clean that you won’t let go walking away for extended hours. Moreover, swimming in the Indian Ocean is ideal here. Unexpectedly, the ocean water is warm – initially, it feels like a hot tub as you come in from the soothing breezing air of the Indian Ocean beach, and body and foot-messaging sands rarely experienced in other world beaches. However, any minor earthquake or potential tsunamis could wipe out the City of Baddey because of its dangerous location at a bay of the Indian Ocean right beside the shore.

Eyl https://g.co/kgs/X8ojnAz

Early in the morning, you would meet with local fishermen getting ready to sail for fish and lobster catch at boat parking sections of the beach. Equipped with their primative fishing gears of nets, they are anxious to get lucky every day.

In the poorly managed beach hotels in Baddey City, lobster and fish dishes are exceptionally delicious. It feels like an unseen and unheard world of marvel in isolation from the rest of the world. Everything is crude and raw here. The talk of the town is about fish, lobster, and fishing boats. Because it is a fishing community and soil here is salty, there is a scarcity of fruits and vegetables, a trade-off for fish delicacies for a while. As Eyl City is hardly inaccessible to the rest of Puntland State via road, fishing harvests are mainly transferred by way of sea transportation to the Red Sea City of Bosaso, or directly to fishing trawlers of foreign companies from all countries imaginable, most illegally fishing in the territorial waters of Somalia and its Exclusive Economic Zone (EEC) with internationally banned fishing gears and methods, destroying fish habitat and the environment in the process, some reportedly dumping toxic industrial wastes in the Indian Ocean. Sea piracy began initially as a community outrage against foreign illegal fishing trawlers, which caused the destruction of its fishing nets and starved community of its livelihood.

However, the road to the City of Eyl is rough as it could be. But this rough ride is soon forgotten as you start enjoying this unusual ocean scenery and blessings it offers. As you stay on in this life experience, you would discard busy urban life and modernity. You would feel humanity again and the beauty of nature. You would forget about the smartphone and ringing of phones, if you would say, and the world of electronics. Welcome to Eyl!