Erigavo

Erigabo or Erigavo (Somali: Ceerigaabo) is the administrative capital of Somaliland's Sanaag region, which has an estimated population of just over 100,000. The city, at an altitude of over 1,800 meters above the sea level, is the mildest in Somaliland.

Erigavo is also the seat for many international and local NGOs. Many of Somaliland government offices operate from Erigavo and provide key services including banking which is provided by the Bank of Somaliland. Other services include a regional hospital, and an airfield to the east of the town.

Ten kilometers to the north of Erigavo are the remains of a juniper forest, running along the edge of the escarpment which looks down to the Gulf of Aden. The escarpment is approximately 2000 metres above sea level, where the road from Erigavo drops down to the coast. Two kilometers to the west it rises to the highest point in Somalia (2,416 metres), known variously as Shimbiris/Shimbir Beris (abode of the birds), Surad Cad, and other names. Shimbir Beris was one of the locations where Sayyid Mohammed Abdullah Hassan built a fort, which was subsequently attacked and destroyed by British colonial forces in 1914.

The road was constructed in a form suitable for trucks by the British during the Second World War, using the labour of Italian prisoners of war. Before then there was a long established camel track down the escarpment. The road leads to a small port town known as Mayd, or Mait, which is thought to have existed since Roman times. Frankincense grows throughout the area north of the escarpment, and is a source of income for the people of this area.

In the Government area of the town of Erigavo (the Shaab) a simple masonry monument holds the wrecked engine block of a British biplane that crashed in the area in 1920 while carrying out bombing operations against Sayyid Mohammed Abdullah Hassan This operation, based out of Aden, is thought to be one of the first uses of aircraft in war, on the continent of Africa.

Approximately 1 km west of Mait, on the coast, is the tomb of Sheik Isaaq, the founder of the Isaaq clan.

Scattered throughout the coastal ranges and some distance inland from the escarpment, are large graves, in the shape of cairns of large stones loosely piled on top on each other, up to three meters high and from six to ten metres wide. These are know as Galla graves (Taalla Galla), and thought to predate the occupation of the area by Somali people. Some have been opened up, showing a small burial chamber covered by a flat rock. The cairns near the coast at Mait seem to be more complex in design, with two distinct levels, the use of different colored stone for different sections, and sometimes an outer boundary ring of stones some metres away from the cairn itself

The main source of livelihood for people in the region is the herding of goats, sheep and camels, over ranges of open country defined on a clan rather than household basis. In the town remittances of money from family members outside Somalia are important.

See also

• Northern Somali sultanates

External links

• German map of the northern half of Sanaag region, circa 1860
• A General Survey of the Somaliland Protectorate 1944 - 1950 by John A. Hunt, M.A., F.R.G.S., F.G.S. Chapter IX Tribes and Their Stock
• Satellite photograph of Sanaag region, in 1980's
• Political mural on the wall of the Erigavo police station, 1991
• Multimap of Erigavo

10°37′N 47°22′E