Waheen is the biggest commercial market in Somaliland, where thousands of business transactions happen each morning. Since it was the commercial hub for many of Somaliland, people and other neighboring regions depended on the Waheen commercial market to sell their products. As the early news reports indicated, about 60% of the small vendors in this market were women-owned.
On Friday, April 1st, 2022, at around 20:00 (17:00 GMT), a fire started at the center of the market and spread to an estimated area of 3KM2. It was not brought under control by the firefighters until Saturday noon. The fire destroyed all the buildings and properties in the Waheen Market owned by business people, traders’ capital, shops, and stalls such as clothes, fruits/vegetables, meats, construction materials, pharmacies, and many more.
Based on the preliminary reports by the government, about 1.5 to 2 Billion US dollars were lost. The government declared a state of emergency and appealed to all citizens, neighboring countries, and the International community to contribute to the market reconstruction. Also, the city council announced to provide emergency assistance to people who had lost their properties in the fire, particularly the poor women, youth, and marginalized groups who could not afford to feed their families daily.
NAFIS Network is very much worried about what happened in Hargeisa, particularly the low-income families who lost their small businesses at this challenging time of droughts and inflations and appealing to generous donors to support these vulnerable groups.