Current information which would update the above-mentioned Response or Response to Information Request SOM20439.E of 10 April 1995, is limited among the sources consulted by the DIRB. Please note that different sources provide different spellings for the Shiqal clan name, including Sheegal, Sheekhaal, Sheikkel, Shiekhal and Sheikhall.

The attached documents make brief reference to the Shiqal clan.

Several other sources consulted provided brief references to the Shiqal. According to a Human Rights Watch/Africa report, the Sheikhal have been accused by Bantu leaders in the region of the Juba and Shebelle rivers of raiding Bantu settlements and seizing their harvests (Apr. 1995, 27).

P.S. Gilkes in the book The Price of Peace, describes the Sheikhall clan of the Martiile/Hiraat clan line of the Hawiye as having a reputation for "religious piety" (Sept. 1994, 116). Gilkes also states that the Sheikhall have "no overall affiliation," although one of their leaders played a role in the second Kismayo peace conference in 1994 (ibid.).

Regarding internal flight alternatives for this clan, a professor of history specializing in Somali affairs at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia stated in a telephone interview on 10 August 1995 that the Shiqal, as a widely dispersed, small clan in Somalia, would not have a specific region or district in which it is dominant, as do larger, more powerful clans. The Shiqal have always lived among larger groups on whom they depend for their security. Thus their situation depends on the state of alliances between clan members operative in the area they live.

Additional and/or corroborating information could not be found among the sources consulted by the DIRB.

This Response was prepared after researching publicly accessible information currently available to the DIRB within time constraints. This Response is not, and does not purport to be, conclusive as to the merit of any particular claim to refugee status or asylum. Please find below the list of additional sources consulted in researching this Information Request.

References

Gilkes, P. S. September 1994. The Price of Peace: Somalia and the United Nations 1991-1994. Biggleswade, UK: Save the Children Fund UK.

Human Rights Watch/Africa [New York]. April 1995. Somalia Faces the Future: Human Rights in a Fragmented Society. New York: Human Rights Watch.

Professor of history specializing in Somali affairs, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia. 10 August 1995. Telephone interview.

Attachments

APS Diplomat Recorder. 26 March 1994. "Somalia - March 22 - Clan Fighting." (NEXIS)

The Indian Ocean Newsletter [Paris]. 22 January 1994. "Somalia: Rapprochement for Hawiye Clans." (NEXIS)

Reuters. 5 April 1995. BC Cycle. Aden Ali. "Rival Militia Battles Flare Across Somalia." (NEXIS)

Additional Sources Consulted

Africa Confidential. 1995.

Africa Report. 1995.

Africa Research Bulletin: Political, Social and Cultural Series. 1995.

DIRB Country File. 1995.

Foreign Broadcast Information Service (FBIS) Reports. 1995.

HCRViews Database.

Horn of Africa Bulletin. 1995.

The Indian Ocean Newsletter. 1995.

New African. 1995.

Profile of Asylum Claims and Country Conditions. 1995.

United States Immigration and Naturalization Service Database.

West Africa. 1995.

Oral sources.