Dokument #1268159
IRB – Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada (Autor)
No information on the Asharaf could be
found among the sources consulted by the DIRB to update earlier
Responses to Information Requests: SOM21097.E of 10 July 1995 and
SOM5588 8 May 1990.
Limited information could be found on the
Luway. However, the sources consulted by DIRB provided information
on the Luway in the general context of the Rahanwein clan family as
a whole.
Lee Cassanelli, in his paper Victims and
Vulnerable Groups in Southern Somalia situates the Luway in the
Bakool and Geedo regions between the Juba and Shebelle rivers (May
1995, 24). This clan is part of the Merifle branch of the Rahanwein
known as the Sagaal (ibid.). For additional information on the
relationship of the Rahanwein clans with other groups in this area,
please consult this paper which is available at Regional
Documentation Centres.
A professor of political science
specializing in Somalia at Davidson College in North Carolina
stated in a telephone interview on 18 August 1995 that the Luway
are agro-pastoralists, who customarily occupied the northern area
of the region between the Juba and Shebelle rivers, west of Belet
Wen. According to the professor, this area benefitted from the
United Nations famine relief operations in 1992, but later it was
sporadic fighting occurred (ibid.). This professor considered the
Rahanwein, as a clan family, to be weak, vulnerable and unable to
make a living outside of their area (ibid.).
In a telephone interview on 17 August 1995,
an anthropologist specializing in Somalia at Wilkes University in
Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, stated that the Luway (also spelt
Luwai) are dry-land agriculturalists living between the Juba and
Shebelle Rivers. The anthropologist said the Luway are politically
disenfranchised in national politics, and in addition, are
politically weak in their local areas (ibid.). During the recent
conflict the Rahanwein clans suffered considerably; for example,
many of the Rahanwein clans were driven off their farmlands by
armed factions (ibid.). The anthropologist did not know the current
state of armed factional activity in the interriverine region.
However, security for the Rahanwein subclans traditionally depended
on the client-patron relationship which subclan leaders were able
to forge with the more dominant groups in their locale (ibid.). The
anthropologist also stated that the subclans that constitute the
Rahanwein of the interriverine region are closely associated or
affiliated with other Rahanwein subclans in the region and that it
would be "highly unlikely they would go anywhere else in the
country to find security" (ibid.).
A professor of anthropology at Colby
College in Waterville, Maine, corroborated the anthropologist's
statements on the devastation suffered by the Rahanwein of the
interriverine region, as well as the close ties among the Rahanwein
subclans and the unlikelihood of the clans finding security outside
of the interriverine region (17 Aug. 1995). In a telephone
interview this professor stated that subclan lineage was of dubious
value for Rahanwein subclans because their lineage was confined to
the interriverine region, where they all shared the same fate
(ibid.). The Rahanwein had "very little in the way of alternatives"
outside of the region, the professor stated (ibid.). For the
Rahanwein subclans, the most important ties are within their
particular locale or village (ibid.).
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.
Anthropologist specializing in Somalia,
Wilkes University, Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania. 17 August 1995.
Telephone interview.
Cassanelli, Lee. May 1995. "Victims and
Vulnerable Groups in Southern Somalia." Ottawa: Documentation,
Information and Research Branch, Immigration and Refugee Board,
Canada.
Professor of anthropology specializing
in Somalia, Colby College Waterville, Maine. 17 August 1995.
Telephone interview.
Professor of political science
specializing in Somalia, Davidson College, Davidson, North
Carolina. 18 August 1995. Telephone interview.