Document #1324513
IRB – Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada (Author)
Documentary references to either of these
groups could not be found among the sources consulted by the DIRB.
A professor of history and Somalia specialist at the University of
Pennsylvania in Philadelphia suggested in a 8 July 1996 telephone
interview that the Horyeel Salhan might be descendants of a lineage
of former slaves, or freed slaves, who were found among the
Majeerteen. The professor stated that the Majeerteen sultans
sometimes employed men from outside the ranks of the Majeerteen as
body guards, or paid them as mercenary soldiers (ibid.).
Numerically insignificant groups were used because it was thought
that their dependant status, and their lack of status in Somali
society made them more trustworthy than men from the Majeerteen
subclans (ibid.).
Additional and/or corroborating information
could not be found among the sources consulted by the DIRB. For a
chart of the Majeerteen lineages, please consult pages 102 and 103
of the "Supplement to Information Session on Country Conditions on
Somalia," which is available at Regional Documentation Centres.
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
sources consulted in researching this Information Request.
Sources Consulted
Blood and Bone: The Call of Kinship in
Somali Society. 1994. I.M. Lewis.
Ethnic and Political Movements in
Ethiopia and Somalia. 1992. Patrick Gilkes.
Généalogie du peuple
Somali. n.d. (Compiled in Documentation, Information and Research
Branch (DIRB), Immigration and Refugee Board. Feb. 1996.
"Supplement to Information Session on Country Conditions on
Somalia."
Information Session on Somalia. 1996.
IRB.
A Modern History of Somalia. 1988. I.M.
Lewis.
Networks of Dissolution: Somalia Undone.
1995. Anna Simons.
The Price of Peace: Somalia and the
United Nations 1991-1994. 1994. Patrick Gilkes.
The Shaping of Somali Society. 1982. L.
Cassanelli.
Somalia: Nation in Search of a State.
1987. D. Laitin and S. Samatar.
Vulnerable Minorities in Somalia and
Somaliland. 1995. B. Helander.