Somalia Loses its Shakespeare, Mohamed Ibrahim Warsame

Mohamed Ibrahim Warsame.
Mohamed Ibrahim Warsame.
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Somalia Loses its Shakespeare, Mohamed Ibrahim Warsame

Mohamed Ibrahim Warsame.
Mohamed Ibrahim Warsame.

Somalia lives in an ongoing path of tragedies, and the latest was an attack led by Harakat al-Shabaab militant group on a hotel in Mogadishu. Still, the death of Mohamed Ibrahim Warsame, known as “Hadrawi”, aged 79, on Thursday hit hard in the whole country.

This reaction was not surprising, Hadrawi has long been known as one of Somalia’s greatest poets, according to a mourning article in The Guardian newspaper. Warsame wasn’t only esteemed because of his poetry, but because he was always closely related to his country’s causes, from a young age. Prison and oppression never broke him or prevented him from writing for peace and democracy.

In 1973, he was jailed by former president Mohamed Siad Barre, for five years. He was accused of incitement against the government, his works were banned, but he kept writing poetry, and his works were secretly published and distributed.

The songs and poems he wrote were full of metaphors, so they were hard to control by the military regime.

In the early 1990s, during a civil war that killed thousands of Somalians, Hadrawi traveled the country in a “peace itinerary”, calling the different warring parties to reject violence. His reconciliation message was welcomed among Somalians inside the country and abroad.

“Poet Mohamed Ibrahim Warsame (Hadrawi) was a symbol of unity and peace. He was a major pillar in Somalia’s arts and literature, and played a pioneering role in preserving the Somalian culture and enhancing our language. All Somalian families are mourning him today,” said President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud in mourning the late poet.

Salah Ahmed, poet, playwright, and Somalian language professor at the US Minnesota University, said: “We will always be proud of the abundant poetic, cultural, and academic heritage he left.”

The European Union, Norway, and the United Kingdom sent condolence messages to the Somalian government.

“Hadrawi wasn’t Somalia’s Shakespeare, but Somalia's Hadrawi. He was more than a poet, he was a philosopher, and a fighter for freedom. He spent many years in jail because he opposed oppression and tyranny,” said Somalian singer and composer Aar Maanta about Hadrawi.

“He wrote some of the best love songs, and poems that Somalians in the Horn of Africa region adored and believed in,” he noted.

Ahmed, who knew Warsame since the late 1960s, said that “Hadrawi was one of the kindest people I have ever met. His poems spoke for those who didn’t have a voice…we will miss him, but we will always be proud of the academic heritage he left.”

Somalia is known as the “nation of poets”, but its heritage has remained vocal, as the Somalian language was written once, in 1927.



Rare Sahara Floods Bring Morocco’s Dried-up South Back to Life

Tourists camp on the shores of Erg Znaigui, a seasonal lake in the village of Merzouga in the Sahara desert in southeastern Morocco on October 20, 2024. (AFP)
Tourists camp on the shores of Erg Znaigui, a seasonal lake in the village of Merzouga in the Sahara desert in southeastern Morocco on October 20, 2024. (AFP)
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Rare Sahara Floods Bring Morocco’s Dried-up South Back to Life

Tourists camp on the shores of Erg Znaigui, a seasonal lake in the village of Merzouga in the Sahara desert in southeastern Morocco on October 20, 2024. (AFP)
Tourists camp on the shores of Erg Znaigui, a seasonal lake in the village of Merzouga in the Sahara desert in southeastern Morocco on October 20, 2024. (AFP)

In Morocco's southeastern desert, a rare downpour has brought lakes and ponds back to life, with locals -- and tourists -- hailing it as a gift from the heavens.

In Merzouga, an attractive tourist town some 600 kilometers (370 miles) southeast of the capital Rabat, the once-parched golden dunes are now dotted with replenished ponds and lakes.

"We're incredibly happy about the recent rains," said Youssef Ait Chiga, a local tour guide leading a group of German tourists to Yasmina Lake nestled amidst Merzouga's dunes.

Khalid Skandouli, another tour guide, said the rain has drawn even more visitors to the tourist area, now particularly eager to witness this odd transformation.

With him, Laetitia Chevallier, a French tourist and regular visitor to the region, said the rainfall has proved a "blessing from the sky".

"The desert became green again, the animals have food again, and the plants and palm trees came back to life," she said.

Locals told AFP the basin had been barren for nearly 20 years.

A man leads his camels along the shores of Yasmina lake, a seasonal lake in the village of Merzouga in the Sahara desert in southeastern Morocco on October 20, 2024. (AFP)

Last year was Morocco's driest in 80 years, with a 48 percent drop in rainfall, according to an October report from the General Directorate of Meteorology (DGM).

But in September, torrential rains triggered floods in southern parts of Morocco, killing at least 28 people, according to authorities.

The rare heavy rains come as the North African kingdom grapples with its worst drought in nearly 40 years, threatening its economically crucial agriculture sector.

Neighboring Algeria saw similar rain and flooding in early September, killing six people.

North African countries currently rank among the world's most water-stressed, according to the World Resources Institute, a non-profit research organization.

The kingdom's meteorological agency described the recent massive rainfall as "exceptional".

It attributed it to an unusual shift of the intertropical convergence zone -- the equatorial region where winds from the northern and southern hemispheres meet, causing thunderstorms and heavy rainfall.

The sun sets behind the dunes at Yasmina lake, a seasonal lake in the village of Merzouga in the Sahara desert in southeastern Morocco on October 20, 2024. (AFP)

- 'Climate change' -

"Everything suggests that this is a sign of climate change," Fatima Driouech, a Moroccan climate scientist, told AFP. "But it's too early to say definitively without thorough studies."

Driouech emphasized the importance of further research to attribute this event to broader climate trends.

Experts say climate change is making extreme weather events, such as storms and droughts, more frequent and intense.

In Morocco's south, the rains have helped partially fill some reservoirs and replenish groundwater aquifers.

But for those levels to significantly rise, experts say the rains would need to continue over a longer period of time.

The rest of the country is still grappling with drought, now in its sixth consecutive year, jeopardizing the agricultural sector that employs over a third of Morocco's workforce.

Tourists take pictures at Yasmina lake, a seasonal lake in the village of Merzouga in the Sahara desert in southeastern Morocco on October 20, 2024. (AFP)

Jean Marc Berhocoirigoin, a 68-year-old French tourist, said he was surprised to find Yasmina Lake replenished. "I hadn't seen these views for 15 years," he said.

Water has also returned to other desert areas such as Erg Znaigui, about 40 kilometers south of Merzouga, AFP reporters saw.

While the rains have breathed life into Morocco's arid southeast, Driouech warns that "a single extreme event can't bring lasting change".

But last week, Morocco's meteorological agency said such downpours could become increasingly frequent, "driven partly by climate change as the intertropical convergence zone shifts further north".