1) Baydhabo is the regional capital of the Bay Region in southern Somalia. The town is located in relatively densely settled agricultural area. The Isaaq community in Baydhabo is said to be very small and their specific treatment by the Somali government is not known to IRBDC. A number of prominent members of the Somali community in Canada suggest that the Somali government, in its determination to crack-down the support base of the SNM, does not hesitate to kill Isaaqs and destroy their property, indifferent of the geographic area they live in. According to the manager of the Toronto-based COSTI, Centre for Italian Scholastic and Technical Organizations, since the founding of the SNM and particularly since the May 1988 civil war, Isaaqs throughout the country have been harassed, bankrupted, driven out of towns, imprisoned or even extrajudicially executed.

2) Keesing's Record of World Events reported that in early September numerous Somali government officials in Mogadishu who were members of the Isaaq clan had been dismissed from their posts. At the same time, it was reported that several Isaaq diplomats at Somali missions overseas had defected to the West rather than responding to recall orders by the government in May and July of 1989. [
ENDNOTE
Keesing's Record of World Events 1989, Vol. 35, No. 6, p. 36758.] According to the manager of COSTI, there are very few Isaaqs who currently occupy positions of authority in the civil service, the military or the police. Nearly all Isaaqs in the armed forces have been dismissed, and some have been detained. Some Isaaq military personnel of lower ranks have been posted to areas where they would be isolated, without their relatives or clan members.