Yesterday in Crisis Over, UN Approves Somali Refugee Repatriation. Minneapolis Waives Their Rent I noted that the situation in Somalia has improved so much that United Nations High Commission on Refugees (UNHCR) has been acquiescing for some time in host counties repatriating Somali refugees. Also that Minneapolis has been log-rolled into waiving most of the rent from Somali Public Housing residents who want to spend long sojourns in their homeland. Apparently the poor things cannot collect Supplemental Security Income (SSI) if they are abroad.
Fortuitously last night I received the valuable weekly update from Quartz Africa with the helpful news Tourists are heading to Somalia to see the ruins of a two-decade civil war By Abdi Latif Dahir September 27, 2016. This notes the arrival of intrepid European visitors but crucially adds:
Somalis living in the diaspora are returning every day with the dozens of flights landing in the country’s main airports.citing the case of
Hamda Yusuf, a Somali-American who lives in Seattle, Washington.Nostalgia is a powerful thing for émigrés and I predict many Somalis, equipped with US Social Security (which is payable overseas) will be interested in going back. How much can they like the Minneapolis winter?…the most important thing, she said, was “being around so many Somali people all the time. Simple trips to the shop can be oddly emotional.”
America should immediately
Anyone under the delusion the returning Somalis will harbor kind thoughts about America should scan the hate-filled (and not very rational) comment thread in this YouTube of a talk by a British tourist about his visit to the lighthouse on the very tip of the Horn of Africa (erected by the Italians, and of course defunct).
