Pollution in Medellín, Colombia. The United Kingdom has red-listed seven countries in the Americas—including Colombia—which requires even vaccinated travelers to quarantine. This has been lambasted as a political move in light of the upcoming COP26 in Glasgow, Scotland / credit: Milo Miloezger on Unsplash
Early in October, the United Kingdom introduced new rules for international travel in light of the COVID-19 pandemic. A “red list” of 54 countries was announced that mandated quarantine for passengers from mostly Global South countries. A few days later, the red list was revised to retain seven countries—Colombia, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Haiti, Panama, Peru and Venezuela.
But how will these travel restrictions affect negotiations at the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC)’s 26th Conference of Parties, also known as COP26? This summit is scheduled to be held next month in Glasgow, Scotland, where delegates from more than 190 countries are convening to figure out how to meet the stipulations of the 2015 Paris Agreement.
However, people from the seven red-listed countries traveling to the United Kingdom must undergo a mandatory quarantine, even if they are vaccinated. And while the U.K. government has announced it will cover quarantine costs, these rules may be contributing to an already inequitable COP set-up. Previous COPs had ended in less-than-ideal outcomes over issues concerning equity.
“[The red list] evidences disparities between countries and the reality of vaccine inequality,” said Maria Alejandra Aguilar, associate lawyer in the climate justice division at Ambiente y Sociedad, an environmental non-governmental organization (NGO) in Colombia. Aguilar is an accredited observer for COP26 and despite her credentials, she worried about being able to travel to Glasgow. “The visa process was a nightmare for me and several delegates—even official ones,” she added, noting how her visa arrived on October 20, two days before her flight, even though she had applied for the visa on July 27.
Aguilar tweeted about her experience with the British Embassy in Colombia, noting how they held onto her passport for two months without an answer. Then on October 6, they asked her what COP26 is and what she intends to do in the United Kingdom.
I want to share the level of incompetence of the @GOVUK visas&immigration- I applied the 5th of August for a visa to attend @COP26 as accredited observer @UKinColombia 2 months without answer + withholding my passport, today this was their reply #COP26pic.twitter.com/JjFcwTwgxU
“I haven’t been able to understand why my country was on the red list, but the U.S. was never on the list, even though they had many COVID cases,” said Adrian Martínez, director and founder of La Ruta del Clima, a Costa Rican NGO focusing on climate governance processes and climate justice. As of publication, the United States had about 80,000 cases per day, whereas Costa Rica had around 600 cases per day. “We felt that we were being differentiated because of where we’re from,” he added.
Until a few days ago, most of Latin America was on the red list. Martínez said that is why countries like Mexico were considering sending only the core team of negotiators to Glasgow. He also added many NGOs in these countries did not try to obtain visas because they thought they would not be able to participate in COP26, given the restrictions.
If a country only sends a core team of negotiators, experts who routinely accompany negotiators to climate-change negotiations very likely will not be doing so because of the uncertainties that have arisen in the process, even with the revised red list. These countries also may reduce the number of negotiators they would send to Glasgow.
Martínez described the situation as a “distraction” from the prep work negotiators and other experts normally engaged during the weeks prior to previous COPs. “How to participate [at COP26] and who can get there has become the main issue,” he explained.
A COP26 spokesperson said ensuring the voices of those most affected by climate change are heard is a “priority for the COP26 Presidency.” The spokesperson also added financial support is available for delegates from developing countries for quarantine stays. But the spokesperson has yet to respond to what extent such financial support can remedy problems Global South representatives have faced in the last few months and will continue to face during negotiations. Meanwhile, the U.K. Department for Transport has yet to reply to this reporter. Questions also were sent to the UNFCCC. This article will be updated when responses are received.
“This closed, gatekeeping approach [to COPs] is political,” Martínez said. “It was supposed to be the most inclusive COP, but it has been the opposite. We had to complain and fight and persevere.”
Rishika Pardikar is a freelance journalist in Bangalore, India.
Editor’s Note:This article, originally published by Unbias the News, is part of the Sinking Cities Project, which covers six cities’ responses to sea-level rise. The investigation was developed with the support of Journalismfund.eu, European Cultural Foundation and the German Postcode Lottery.
It is the middle of July 2022. The downpour has been going on for four days with no signs of abating anytime soon. Cars are submerging into gaping canals. People are getting swept off the road and seven have died. Several houses are flooded.
The scenes are not uncommon during the rainy season for people living in Lagos, Nigeria; they were expected with millions of people living in densely populated suburbs without proper water channels.
Babatunde Noah, a cleric in his 30s, lives in a tenement bungalow on Odunfa street in Bariga, a low-income suburb in Lagos adjoining the Lagos lagoon. The rain has subsided that Tuesday morning, a slight relief. He is hoping it stops totally so that the single room he shares with his wife and only child can stop flooding. He is one of those who have not temporarily vacated their house in the community.
“I moved away from my former house because of the same problem,” Noah told Unbias The News. “In my former place, you dare not be away from home when it is raining. You will come back to see your room full of water.”
Noah said in the old and new places he has lived, every year, people mitigated the impact of the annual flood by cementing areas around the house and raising fences. But since 2018, when the Lagos state government under Akinwunmu Ambode filled Oworonshoki wetlands with sand, manufacturing an estimated 40 hectares (98 acres) of land to build a jetty terminal, the annual flood has defied this makeshift solution.
The National Emergency Management Agency says at least 8 million residents in Lagos are prone to flood disasters with 12 percent of the state subject to seasonal flooding, according to Lagos’ 2021 Climate Risk Assessment.
At the core of the problem is a clash of long overdue urban development and protection of natural ecosystems, a sprawling real estate industry, and a government unwilling to confront climate realities.
As the state’s population increases annually with thousands of people coming into the city every day, space becomes scarcer and the government’s idea of development, experts say, is infrastructure-centered.
‘Heading Towards a Catastrophe’
Lagos, Nigeria’s economic capital, is a low-lying coastal city and is just one meter above sea level. Its coastline accounts for 180 kilometers (111 miles) out of Nigeria’s total 850 kilometers (528 miles) stretch, positioning it as an important coastal economy. Forty percent of the state is covered by water bodies and wetlands.
Lagos has grown from a tiny settlement of 28,000 people in the 19th century to a landmass of 3,345 km2 (2,078 square miles) with over 22 million people.
The expansion in size started with the British colonial government’s decision to transform Lagos into an industrialized trade centre in the 19th and 20th centuries to serve colonial interests. As a result, British colonizers made the first to foray into Lagos’ natural ecosystem to create residential estates and highbrow business districts. In a trend that has not diminished many decades after, thanks to an ever-increasing population and scarcity of space, successive Lagos state governments have continued to turn to the waterbody for land.
Lagos during colonial times / credit: National Archives of the United Kingdom
Lagos during colonial times / credit: National Archives of the United Kingdom
Experts and analysts say this portends danger as the city prepares–or not–for the projected sea level rise. The sea level rise is expected by two meters at the end of the century, putting Lagos, with its low topography, at the risk of completely sinking.
“We are heading towards a catastrophe,” Toyin Oshaniwa, the founder of Nature Cares Resource Centre, told Unbias The News.
“The question we should ask ourselves is: Are we really prepared for the greater risks that are coming? There is nothing we can do about it; as long we are here there is going to be flooding either from the coast shoreline or the rains that fall.”
As Lagos floods every rainy season, attention heightens around the city’s plan to tackle the challenge. Experts say the floods result from a lack of drainage services, vanishing green areas, an unorganized waste delivery system, and most importantly, vastly depleted wetlands.
“Lagos has not been properly planned to cater to its environmental component… The environmental challenges of Lagos seem too much to manage” Seyifunmi Adebote, an Abuja-based environmentalist said.
The population of Lagos residents is projected at over 32 million by 2050 and over 88 million by the end of the century, according to the Global Cities Institute at the University of Toronto, which would make it the world’s most populated city.
With an already limited space, environmental experts say they fear the urban population pressure would have grave consequences for the wetlands and the ecosystem.
“Looking at Lagos as it is today, it is inconceivable that 40 million people can be accommodated by 2050,” Adebote said. “With the horizontal infrastructural investments, every bit of environmental sanctuary will be ripped off. Personally, I believe 2050 is even too far to use as a yardstick for the urgency of action Lagos state needs to take to respond to its fast-degrading environmental status.”
Wetlands Sold Off to the Highest Bidder
According to experts, Lagos is one of the cities which will be most affected by the sea-level rise which will now be expected to inevitably rise by a minimum of 27 centimeters (10.6 inches) as a result of the melting Greenland ice cap, projected to bring 110 trillion tons of ice into the sea. As global temperature rises as a result of the sustained burning of fossil fuel, glacial ice, iceberg and ice shelves are melting away.
Pristine wetlands, environmentalists say, will help Lagos mitigate some of the now-inevitable consequences of global warming. But the wetlands are at the risk of extinction in time for the projected timeframe for sea-level rise.
No one knows the exact numbers of wetlands left or the rate at which they have been encroached by developers, not even the government itself, but the consensus among experts and the government is that half of them are gone.
Wetlands are critical to the ecosystem as they serve various functions ranging from being home to biodiversity, recharging underground water, controlling shoreline erosion and preventing flooding. These wetlands can contain rain and store them for underground recharge. As wetlands diminish in Lagos and the intensity of rain increases due to climate change, the natural ‘’sponge’’ retaining water is no longer in sight.
But the roots of the problem date back to the 1970s when the United Nations organized a multilateral framework to protect wetlands. The convention recognizes 11 wetlands in Nigeria, brought under international protection, excluding Lagos.
The government of the day did not provide the documents for Lagos; until today, the Ramsar List does not recognize Lagos’ wetlands.
“I believe it is one of the reasons they are not really protected,” Oshaniwa said.
In 2016, the state government drafted a policy to protect the wetlands. The draft policy recognized 31 wetlands and was reviewed in 2017 at a stakeholder’s meeting.
The policy has not been made law to date. Later on, according to Tolulope Adeyo, the director of the Department of Conservation and Ecology in the state’s Ministry of the Environment, the agency outsourced the surveying to a private company because the draft policy was not “comprehensive.”
In the meantime, Adeyo told Unbias The News that the department has embarked on advocacy programs across the state and constituted a monitoring team to ensure that the locals do not encroach on wetlands.
“People are looking at the economic worth of these wetlands and not the environmental importance,’’ Adeyo said, adding that they have had to enforce stoppage of constructions and seizure of property.
Some civil society organizations say that the government grants permits to real estate developers to provide exclusive highbrow residential areas and use them to build public infrastructure, bringing billions of naira in internall generated revenue to the state coffers.
The Ministry of Physical Planning and Urban Development–corroborated by two other sources within the Ministry of the Environment who requested not to remain anonymous for fear of punishment–is responsible for allocating wetlands to real estate developers.
“The Ministry of Environment seems to be interested,” Olamide Udomo-Ejorh, director of Lagos Urban Initiative Development, a non-governmental organization campaigning for the protection of wetlands told Unbias The News. ‘’When we went for meetings they said wetland protection is something they really want to look into, however, the Ministry of Physical Planning is still giving it out to be built upon.’’
“That inter-agency lack of synergy is a challenge,” Oshaniwa, who is an expert regularly consulted by the Ministry of Environment and has worked with the ministry for more than a decade, also said of the issue. “There is a lack of that long-term planning and [we have] this policy somersaulting, everybody comes with one thing [or another].”
Adeyo declined to speak on the matter, but an NGO working closely with the Lagos government that does not want a mention in this story confirmed to Unbias The News.
The ministry of physical planning and urban development did not respond to requests for comment on the lack of inter-agency cooperation.
A Lack of Political Will
Lagos state is a member of C40 Cities, a global network of governors and mayors working together to adapt their cities to the impacts of climate change, tailored to achieve the Paris Agreement and committing to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050. In collaboration with C40, the Lagos state government has developed a Climate Action Plan, which outlines plans for the state to achieve its climate goals. The second installment, which runs from 2020-25, does not include a plan for wetlands protection, nor is a mention of wetland protection in the Lagos Environmental Management Law 2017 (as amended).
When asked if it is possible to restore the reclaimed wetlands and stop further encroachment, Maximus Ugwuoke, the Lagos city advisor for C40, puts it to “political will.”
‘’It depends on the political commitment of the government in power,” Ugwuoke said. “The way I see it is that if care is not taken, the masses are going to the streets if we don’t start taking action about wetlands. People have reclaimed wetlands and water is entering people’s homes.’’
As in most cases with environmental issues, the diminishment of wetlands is not a topic on the front burner. It remains a topic mostly examined in conferences, stakeholder meetings and seminars and the general population does not have the full scope of the damage already carried out, both by the government, which rather places economics above the environment and people trying to find a place to live in the city.
Unbias The News examined some critical wetlands in Lagos using satellite imageries and the extent to which they have been encroached on in the past decades.
The wetlands investigated by Unbias The News are Omu Creek wetlands, Akoka wetlands, Ajah wetlands, Ikorodu South wetlands, Badagry Creek and Lekki Conservation wetlands. The years vary but we were able to trace the progression of depletion in the past two decades.
Satellite investigation reveals that Omu Creek, located in Eti Osa local government bordering the Lagos lagoon and the Atlantic Ocean, is home to the tropical Mangrove swamp wetlands vegetation (common in the Southern part of Nigeria) that showed uncommon resilience over the decades. Between 2002 and 2005, the creek’s most flourishing years in the century as evidenced by multiple satellite data, over 80 percent of its natural marshland floors were intact.
However, in the 2010s, as communities started to grow around the creek the wetlands began to diminish. Satellite images below show the gradual expansion of development. By 2021, 37 percent of the wetlands have been lost.
Similarly, other remaining major wetlands have diminished. Wetlands in Akoka, a suburb of Yaba, a community seen as the social transition between Lagos Mainland and Lagos Island, have diminished by 19 percent between 2013 and 2022. In Ajah, an affluent area of Lagos Island, the wetlands diminished by 19 percent between 2012 and 2021. The wetlands in Ikorodu South, located in the northeast part of the state and sharing boundary with Ogun state, did the same number between 2011 and 2022.
Wetlands in the Badagry Creeks, a border coastal town which was used for the trans-Atlantic slave trade, diminished by 29 percent between 2013 and 2021. The most alarming instance is Lekki Conservation Centre wetlands which diminished by 42 percent between 2011 and last year.
‘Like a Tsunami’
Adewunmi Ishola, a roadside food seller who retails cooked staple foods like rice and beans, had lived in Itodun town, a coastal community at Ibeju Lekki, with her three children for years. The house in which she was living, just like Noah’s, was a tenement house, typical for low-income earners in Lagos, where many families share the same facilities like a kitchen and toilets.
Several houses separated the building, a plantation of coconut trees that stretched some meters, which was a cynosure for foreign tourists and local beach lovers and then a beach on the Atlantic Ocean.
But the coast is eroding, and as the community kept a months-long vigil over their houses, it was only a countdown. The beach gradually wore away, the whole coconut plantation. As seen by Unbias The News satellite images, the coastline in Itodun eroded by 48 meters (157 feet) between 2020 and 2021 alone.
Since 2020, a forceful surge has been threatening the community. By August 2021, it got to the houses. One midnight in that fateful month, it washed some houses away as Ishola, and her children awoke to screams and rumbles of people trying to salvage their property. By morning, houses were gone, livelihoods drowned, and decades-long corpses of buried people resurfaced.
“I watched the Tsunami, it was just like that,” Ishola narrated, referencing a once viral CGI-animated end-of-time ocean surge that washed off an entire city. ‘’I was so scared, people were all screaming. Nobody affected could get a thing out,” she recounted.
In a blink of an eye, not unexpected, hundreds of people are robbed of homes and life savings. ‘’This place is not where someone should live… It is the economic situation. It is too close to the ocean,’’ Ishola berated.
‘’It is loans we survive on. A year’s journey has been turned into a decade, even in a decade, I can only hope to God we get there,’’ she said when asked how they are recovering from their losses.
Lagos’ shoreline has battled erosion for decades, and the acceleration, which has alarmed experts and environmentalists, is driven by climate change and human activities. Lagos’ coastline is also the site of some of the state’s most ambitious infrastructures, hoping to position the city as a major global economic force.
But as these developments continue, low-income coastal communities are already feeling the impacts. In Ibeju Lekki, a well-too-known portrait of Lagos is rapidly shaping up – urban development coming at the expense of the urban poor. As erosion eats deeper into their communities, thousands of livelihoods and ancestries will be displaced within an already congested city, pushing them off the map.
Deflecting the Problem
Idotun is one of the numerous clusters of communities in Ibeju Lekki and has been there for centuries. The Lekki Free Trade Zone—a 16,500 hectares (40,772 acres) area with a coast border of about 50 kilometers (31 miles)—was created in 2006. Given its GDP and growth prospects, Lagos is conceived to be West Africa’s principal economic hub. It includes, among several other companies, a refinery by Africa’s richest man, Aliko Dangote and a new $1.5 billion port, Nigeria’s deepest.
The ongoing construction of the port has created conditions for erosion by redirecting stronger waves towards the community’s portion of the coast. To protect the port, barriers have been erected to withstand surges and make it formidable against erosion, much like the famous ‘’Great Wall of Lagos,” an 8.5 kilometer (5.28 mile) wall covering Eko Atlantic, an upscale artificial city built on reclaimed land on the Atlantic Ocean at Victoria Island.
The protective walls deflect the wave downstream, experts say.
“It is alarming,” Dr Olusegun Adeaga, a lecturer in the Department of Geography at the University of Lagos said of the rate of erosion on Lagos coastline. ”There will be deposits somewhere and there will be erosion in other places. [Ocean waves] will deflect back and erosion is the implication. Unless those natural barriers [wetlands and mangroves] are back or you mimic nature to believe those structures are there. If not, as you save one, you lose one.’’
Lekki Free Trade Zone Development and Eko Atlantic did not respond to requests for comments. Nor did the Federal Government, the principals of these projects.
Coastline Erosion at Alpha Beach and Idotun
Unbias The News examines erosion at the coastline in two communities with the most extensive coastline development.
As shown in the satellite images below, the coastlines of Idotun and Alpha Beach communities have receded heavily in the past five years. The Idotun coastline has eroded by at least 80 meters (262 feet) in less than five years, wiping off hundreds of houses and other structures. Within 2018 and 2020, it extended inland by 48 meters (157 feet) and between 2020 and the following, 32 meters (104 feet) were recovered through the massive sand filling. which residents told Unbias the News most of it has been lost again due to erosion. Investigation shows that most of the erosion happened in the last five years, coinciding with the most extensive development of the port.
Also, Alpha Beach has eroded 87 meters (285 feet) between 2016 and 2022 and destroyed at least 120 coast buildings and structures according to satellite investigation since 2017 and displacing hundreds of low-income families.
Satellites showed significant advances between February 2018 and December 2018, an 11-month period with a record of about 60 structures loss due to water-induced soil degradation, and by 2021, the number had doubled.
Some developments sprang up laterally on the flanks, where residents away from the coast to develop lands adjacent to the advancing water, seemingly buying more time before the land was taken over by the rapidly advancing coastal boundary.
With an eroding coast, now an inevitable sea level rise and continued loss of wetlands which studies say in normal circumstances can keep up with the rise in sea level but due to climate change and the expected high-level rise, Lagos has become extremely vulnerable.
The National Emergency Management Agency, the agency responsible for managing disasters in Nigeria and which will be responsible for managing possible outcomes of devastating flooding, said it cannot predict the future but has a stockpile of relief materials for two weeks in the case of any eventuality.
‘’Every time, the situation is dynamic and based on needs,’’ Farinloye Ibrahim, the Coordinator for Lagos Territorial Office for the agency said. “We have two weeks’ stock of relief materials depending on the local government.”
Already, more than 600 people have been killed and 1.4 million others displaced this year alone as a result of flooding in almost half of the country which was sparked by heavy rainfalls and lack of critical infrastructure and it remains to be seen the true capacity of the agency as hundreds of thousands of people more are displaced.
The 2.3 million people affected in Nigeria by the ongoing flood will disagree with the availability of relief material.
Requests for comment from the government were received, but not responded to.
A letter sent to ministries was returned with a stamp verifying receipt.
‘A Real Life Issue’
As the world prepares for a rise in sea level which will facilitate increased coastal flooding, Lagos state government’s increased vigor for developments and licensing of exclusive real estate at the expense of environmental concerns is a source of great worry to analysts.
Lagos has become one of the most expensive real estate markets on the continent thanks to its increasing commercial values and expanding multi-billion dollar GDP but the growth is papering over the cracks. As the economy expands and luxury estates rise, the foundation weakens and is ready to sink.
In its 2021 climate risk assessment, the Lagos state government acknowledges that 12.9 million residents are vulnerable to climate impacts, representing almost half of the current population and more would be affected as population increases.
Besides the possible loss of lives, an estimated $4 billion are lost to flooding every year, which is 4.1 percent of the state’s gross domestic product. In August 2022, the state governor pledged a 20 billion naira Green Fund Initiative to tackle the impact of climate change.
The biggest hurdle, civil society is saying, is the government and policymakers.
‘’For the policymakers in Lagos, I think for them [the issue of climate change] is still an academic exercise. Let’s do a resilience strategy, they do it. Let’s do a surge prevention study, they do it. Let’s do a Climate Action Plan, they do it. They are not seen as a real-life issues.’
“The coming election, that is the same promise they will make to us. They will say they will do the road and channel the gutters but that is their promise every year. We are tired but we don’t have any other option. We don’t have any other place to go. If we are to get an apartment where water does not disturb us, it is quite expensive,” Babatunde said.
People like Adewunmi and Babatunde do not have knowledge of the science changing around them and there is barely anything they can do. But they are on the frontline of a dangerously metamorphosing city.
Mansir Muhammed contributed satellite image analysis for this story.
Ope Adetayo is a freelance journalist based in Lagos, Nigeria. His works have appeared in Al Jazeera, The Guardian UK, Foreign Policy, Vice, The Africa Report and African Arguments, among several others.
Editor’s Note: To help our international readers understand this Unicorn Riot story, we provide the following context. Roof Depot is a closed warehouse that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has deemed a Superfund site, which means it has been identified as a candidate for cleanup of hazardous materials. Further, East Phillips is a neighborhood in the U.S. Midwestern city of Minneapolis. Find here a scan of the physical press release that has been cited below.
MINNEAPOLIS, United States—East Phillips residents and members of the American Indian Movement (AIM) started an occupation of the Roof Depot site in the early hours of Tuesday morning in resistance to the city’s plan to demolish the site which sits atop decades of arsenic contamination. Demands include an end to the demolition plan, no more additional polluting facilities and an end to evictions of encampments. [After the publication of this article, the occupation was evicted by Minneapolis Police on Tuesday evening. Eight people were reportedly detained and released.]
In the “arsenic triangle” in the most diverse neighborhood in Minnesota, the Roof Depot site is set for demolition next week against the wishes of many in the community who are fearful of the toxic impacts on their health and the health of future generations.
A tipi was erected in the morning, along with over a dozen tents and a sacred fire. In the morning, Unicorn Riot livestreamed the beginning of the occupation as well as an afternoon press conference.
Watch the press conference that took place at 1 p.m. at 27th Street and Longfellow Avenue below.
A press release from Defend the Depot said the community is demanding the city officials cancel the demolition and made seven specific demands. They also provided a brief history of the past century of heavy pollution on East Phillips, where the Roof Depot EPA Superfund site exists.
“For generations, East Phillips, a neighborhood of over 70% residents of color and home to the majority Indigenous Little Earth housing development, has been treated as an environmental sacrifice zone. For the last century, East Phillips has been zoned for heavy industrial pollution. According to US EPA data, the area within a one-mile radius of the Roof Depot site ranks nationally in the 89th percentile for diesel particulate matter, the 99th percentile for Superfund Proximity, and the 96th percentile for hazardous waste proximity.”
Press release from Defend the Depot – Feb. 21, 2023
The list of demands includes an end to encampment evictions and the creation of a new ‘navigation center’ for the unhoused people to access support, referrals, and resources:
Total relocation of the Hiawatha Expansion Project
Hand over control of Roof Depot site to the community
Plans to remove of Bituminous Roadways and Smith Foundry [Bituminous Roadways and the Smith Foundry are sources of legacy contamination near to the Roof Depot]
Enact a moratorium on encampment evictions [According to a Wilder Foundation Study Indigenous people make up 1 percent of Minnesota’s adult population, but a disproportionate 13 percent of the houseless population. A survey of a large encampment in Minneapolis in 2020 found that nearly half of the 282 people living there were Native.]
Provide funding for peer support workers
Invest in pilot programs to provide shelter and services to the houseless community like the former navigation center
Provide funding for the community’s vision for an indoor urban farm at the Roof Depot site
“The area around the Roof Depot warehouse is a former Superfund site, and the Depot building itself sits atop a reservoir of legacy arsenic contamination. Public health and environmental experts have spoken out about the risks of demolishing the building and exposing arsenic beneath the site and releasing it into the community. The city’s own Environmental Assessment Worksheet (EAW) acknowledges the risk of “fugitive” dust, which experts say will likely contain arsenic and other contaminants, but the city declined to carry out more intensive environmental studies and has delivered no information about protection plans to those living near the demolition site.“
Press release from Defend the Depot – Feb. 21, 2023
"I appreciate everybody that has come out here to fight for our people. We can't stand any more pollution. You know, our kids are sick, our elders are sick, and, we can't do this, we're gonna fight, so I hope you're seeing this, Mayor Frey." – Nicole Perez pic.twitter.com/5IUxTrCMlU
— UNICORN RIOT 🦄 mastodon.social/@UnicornRiot 👈 (@UR_Ninja) February 21, 2023
On Sunday, a protest at the Roof Depot site brough together the resistance against the planned ‘Cop City’ in the Atlanta Forest and the East Phillips struggle against the Roof Depot demolition. At the action, AIM member Rachel Thunder told people to be expecting actions at the site and that “you’re gonna know in our words and our thoughts and our prayers and our songs, that we’re not gonna back down. We’re gonna make a stand here.”
During Sunday’s protest we heard from Cassie Holmes, an East Phillips Neighborhood Institute (EPNI) board member, about some of the history of the East Phillips community dealing with the Roof Depot site over the last several years.
In late January, the Minneapolis City Council voted 7-6 that the site was to be demolished. Unicorn Riot has been covering this story for several months, documenting protests and city hall meetings.
Daniel Schmidt, an organizer with the EPNI’s Communications Team, provides insight on the history of environmental racism in Minneapolis, including the origin of the arsenic plume that lays dormant underneath the East Phillips Roof Depot site.
A protest in Taleex, Somalia, on January 15 / credit: Khaatumo Media Office
Editor’s Note: Light editing helped conform this article that originally appeared in Peoples Dispatch to TF’s style.
Protests against secessionist rule are spreading across the Sool region of Somaliland, the breakaway region of northern Somalia. Unionist protesters are calling for reunification with Somalia and Somali activists and observers opine that the protests might soon spread across Somaliland, questioning the legitimacy of its unrecognized claim to sovereignty, which the United States and the United Kingdom have been seeking to strengthen with recent overtures.
On Sunday, January 15, protests were reported from the Taleex city, where Somaliland’s tricolor flags were removed and replaced with the blue flags of Somalia. Taleex is about 160 kilometers northeast of the epicenter of the protests, Las Anod, Sool region’s capital city. Las Anod was captured by Somaliland from Somalia’s autonomous region of Puntland in 2007.
The protests began in the city on December 28. In an attempt to put them down, security forces killed at least 20 civilians over the following five days, before reportedly retreating to the city’s outskirts on January 5.
Somaliland’s commander of Armed Forces, Brigadier General Mahad Ambashe, has, however, indicated his intention to take back the city, saying that his troops “shall continue staying in Las Anod and Sool region to ensure law and order has been followed by residents.”
Defiant, the clan leaders of the region held a meeting in Las Anod on January 12, calling on Somaliland’s forces to withdraw from Sool, Sanaag, and Cayn (SSC), where a majority of the people have been historically opposed to secession from Somalia.
Pro-unionist troops under the command of the head of the Dhulbanate clan have taken over the city and sworn to defend it from Somaliland. “Everybody is waiting for the tribesmen in Las Anod to fully announce a war against Somaliland. And you will hear this very soon as they have formed a committee of 33 heads to come up with a roadmap to remove Somaliland from SSC,” Elham Garaad, a UK-based Somali activist whose unionist parents migrated out of Somaliland, told Peoples Dispatch.
The protests had spread to the city of Kalabaydh, 70 kilometers (43 miles) to the southwest of Las Anod, by January 12. Two days later, unionist demonstrations broke out in Xudun, 100 kilometers (62 miles) to the north of Las Anod, and in Boocame, 80 kilometers (49 miles) to its east. Protesters also took to the streets of Boocame’s neighboring Tukarak on January 15, and blocked a minister from visiting the city.
Badhaan, a city in Sanaag region, and Buuhoodle city in Cayn region, have also witnessed protests. The three regions together had formed the Sool, Sanaag, and Cayn (SSC) state of Somalia, before being forced into Somaliland by the secessionist Somali National Movement (SNM).
Waving the blue flag of Somalia, the protesters have been demanding the “right to self-determination” on the question of reuniting with Somalia, which was fractured after the civil war that ended with the collapse of its federal government in 1991.
‘Most Regions in Somaliland Oppose Secession’
“Until 1991, there was no such thing as Somaliland, except when the area was a British Protectorate,” Mohamed Olad, a Somali activist studying law in the United States, told Peoples Dispatch. “The idea of forming a country on the basis of this border of the British protectorate,” separating itself from the part of Somalia under Italian occupation, was opposed by two of the three original states of Somalia that came to be part of the self-declared Republic of Somaliland after 1991, he said.
Support for secession was largely limited to the North West state, a stronghold of the SNM, which fought in the war against Somalia’s federal government led by Mohamed Siad Barre. SSC and Awdal “have historically opposed” the notion of Somaliland, Olad explained, adding that Awdal was captured by the SNM with the help of Ethiopia during the civil war.
The SSC leaders, on the other hand, were tricked into signing an agreement on the guarantee that Somaliland would form itself into a single state within Somalia. “That agreement never included secession,” he said, adding that discontent against Somaliland’s rule has since been intensifying, and protests might also soon spread to Awdal.
Three of the four major clans—namely the Dhulbahante, Warsangeli and Gadabursi—along with the smaller Issa clan, had opposed the secession from Somalia, added Elham Garaad. Only the Isak clan, which dominated the SNM and had a strong presence in the North West state, supported the secession and formation of Somaliland. Other clans have since felt marginalized by the Isak, which wields disproportionate power in the government of Somaliland.
But currently, the “Isak themselves are divided,” Garaad said. “Gaarhajis, one of the largest tribes (under the Isak clan), has been vocal about the atrocities in the SSC region.” Defending the right of the people in SSC to be unionist, they have called on the Somaliland government to stop the killings. Garaad maintains that the current spate of protests may soon reach even Somaliland’s capital city Hargeisa, which has been a historic stronghold of the SNM’s secessionist politics, dominated by the Isak.
“SNM was led by the elite and petty bourgeoisie of the Isak clan. They have neither dealt with the class contradictions within the clan, nor succeeded in integrating other clans into the secessionist movement,” historian Mohamed Hassan told Peoples Dispatch. “While the Isak is supposed to be the ruling clan, in effect, what you have in Somaliland is a one-man rule by former army Colonel Musa Bihi Abdi, whose term had already expired in October 2022. [An] increasing number of people within the Isak clan are also supporting unionist politics.”
Somalia is among the most homogeneous countries in Africa, in terms of language and religion, explained Hassan, who is also an advisor to the head of Ethiopia’s Somali state. The clan system from feudal times, preserved under colonial administration as an essential tool for divide-and-rule, remains the key fissure exploited by imperialism to ensure Somalia remains a fractured nation, he argued.
Rising Tide of Somali Nationalism
“But hundreds of thousands from Somaliland are working and staying in Somalia,” he added. Youngsters from Somaliland make up a significant portion of Somalia’s national army. The large Somali diaspora is getting increasingly politicized and organized by international exposure. All this has contributed to a surge in Somali nationalism, he said, adding that even businessmen in Somaliland, who want a larger and integrated market, seek a unified Somalia.
The tensions between clans—whose leaders choose the MPs in most of Somalia, including in Somaliland—is only a surface manifestation of the tide of Somali nationalism churning from underneath, Hassan argued. In the face of this nationalist sentiment, Somaliland’s existence as an independent entity is facing a “crisis of legitimacy” internally, he maintains.
This crisis is accentuated by the fact that Musa Bihi Abdi’s presidential term expired last October, despite which he has continued to rule without having conducted elections yet. In September, the Somaliland Electoral Commission announced that elections cannot be held for at least nine more months due to financial and technical problems.
Opposition parties, which have 52 of the 82 seats in Somaliland’s parliament, had led protests in August demanding timely elections. At least seven people were killed and several more wounded in the crackdown on these protests. It was the assassination of a popular opposition politician, in the backdrop of a spate of killings of prominent people in the SSC region over the last decade, that triggered the protests on December 28 in Las Anod, which have snowballed into a unionist movement.
While Somaliland is thus unraveling, with internal rifts between ruling and opposition parties, mounting tensions between the clans, and sa urging unionist sentiment contesting its legitimacy, the United States and the United Kingdom have been increasingly legitimizing the secessionist state.
U.S. Military Base in Somaliland?
The then-commander of United States Africa Command (AFRICOM) General Stephen Townsend met with President Abdi in Somaliland in May, becoming the highest ranking official to visit the breakaway state, whose claims to sovereignty have no international recognition.
While not recognizing Somaliland as a sovereign state, and officially adhering to ‘One Somalia policy,’ the United States has lately made several gestures seen as a dilution of this policy. Prior to Townsend’s visit, in March 2022, the Somaliland Partnership Act was introduced in the U.S. Senate by Republicans Jim Risch and Mike Rounds, and Democrat Chris Van Hollen.
The “Biden Administration has limited itself to the confines of a ‘single Somalia’ policy at the detriment of other democratic actors in the country. In this complex time in global affairs and for the Horn of Africa, the United States should explore all possible mutually-beneficial relationships with stable and democratic partners, like Somaliland, and not limit ourselves with outdated policy approaches and diplomatic frameworks that don’t meet today’s challenges,” Jim Risch had said.
The act was signed into law by U.S. President Joe Biden on December 23, under the Fiscal 2023 National Defense Authorization Act, which was the first time a separate reference to Somaliland was made in U.S. law.
The Act commissions a feasibility study by the “Secretary of State, in consultation with the Secretary of Defense,” to determine “whether opportunities exist for greater collaboration in the pursuit of United States national security interests… with… Somaliland.”
It further seeks to identify “the practicability and advisability of improving the professionalization and capacity of security sector actors within the Federal Member States (FMS) and Somaliland.” While adding that “Nothing in this Act… may be construed to convey United States recognition of Somalia’s FMS or Somaliland as an independent entity,” it stops just short of doing that.
Somaliland’s port city of Berbera will also be one of the sites for the U.S.-led multinational 10-day military exercise scheduled to take place in February. On January 13, personnel from AFRICOM’s Combined Joint Task Force – Horn of Africa [CJTF-HOA] visited Somaliland and surveyed the Berbera port.
“Berbera is now an American military base without settling the secession issue,” former Somali Special Envoy to the United States, Abukar Arman, wrote in the Eurasia review. “Stakes have never been higher for all actors. Against that backdrop, President Muse Bihi was given the nod and wink to march on ahead to secure total control over his claimed territory by any means necessary. He was also granted the reassurance that neither the central government of Somalia nor Puntland will interfere militarily or otherwise.”
‘Oil Companies Want a Weak and Divided Somalia’
In the meantime, Genel Energy, listed in London Stock Exchange, claimed the right to explore and exploit the oil fields in Somaliland last month. The oil ministry of the federal government of Somalia has said it “categorically rejects Genel Energy plc’s claim to own petroleum rights in Somalia’s northern regions and calls upon Genel Energy plc to cease its illegal claim to own petroleum rights.”
Insisting that it is the only body authorized to grant such rights, it warned: “Any authorization granted in violation of Somalia’s laws and regulations is unlawful and would be considered null and void.”
Refuting Somalia’s Federal government, Somaliland’s secessionist government has claimed “the authority to engage foreign investors in order to explore and exploit the Republic of Somaliland’s potential hydrocarbons and mineral resources. No one other than the Somaliland government has the authority to claim or award an exploration license within Somaliland,” a statement issued on December 29 said, amid the crackdown on the protests in Las Anod.
Las Anod is also claimed by Somaliland’s neighboring Puntland, which has been an autonomous region within Somalia in dispute with Somaliland over the SSC region. On January 9, Puntland declared that it will be independent of Somalia until the Federal Constitution is finalized.
Disputes over the rights to enter into partnerships with foreign companies over oil and other natural resources are reported to be among the key reasons behind tensions between the Federal government of Somalia and Puntland.
“Oil and gas has been found across Somalia, including in Somaliland and Puntland. British capital is heavily invested. These oil companies want a weak and divided Somalia, because a strong and united country will be more difficult to exploit,” Hassan said.
Puntland’s state government maintains that the provisional federal constitution and the constitution of Puntland state allows it to act as an independent entity until the federal constitution is finalized, and all the states’ constitutions are harmonized with it.
Pointing out that Puntland has a constitutional right to be independent until the finalization of the federal constitution, Olad said it is Somaliland that has been blocking the finalization of the constitution. The federal government of Somalia, he said, should ensure that Somaliland will no longer hold the process of finalizing the constitution hostage.
However, a lack of confidence in the federal government led by President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud, who is seen as inept and pliable by western powers, is perceptible, despite the surging unionist politics and nationalist sentiment.
The federal government can truly reflect the widespread sentiment of Somali nationalism only when it is elected on the basis of one-person-one-vote, argues Olad. Former President Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed, aka Farmajo, who had become a popular representative of Somali nationalism, had promised to break the stranglehold of the clans by implementing universal adult suffrage, but failed to do so. He lost the clan-controlled election last year, and the current government of Hassan Sheikh Mohamud has failed to materialize the aspirations of Somali nationalism.
Mohamed Hassan sums the situation up by citing [Italian communist] Antonio Gramsci: “The old is dying and the new is struggling to be born,” he says, adding that “the winds of change are most definitely blowing over all of Somalia.”
