Somaliland, to the north of Somalia and independent since 1991, offers a template for peaceful, legitimate government in the region.

Does my right hon. Friend agree that it is a tragedy if law and order is beginning to break down in the north of Somalia, in what is, after all, the old British Somaliland and is now known to local people as Somaliland?

Sorghum, corn or maize, different types of onions, beans, sesame, tobacco, and fruits such as bananas, watermelon, oranges, papayas, and mangoes, from Bardera farms reach markets as far as Djibouti, about 3,000 km away to the north of Somalia.

In this conference the SSC communities who inhabit a territory about 50% of the north of Somalia has established their own Regional Administration that supports the Somali unity "Khaatumo State of Somalia" which they announced to be part of the Transitional Federal Government of Somalia.

The Bab-el-Mandeb, meaning "Gate of Grief" in Arabic, is a strait between Yemen on the Arabian Peninsula, Djibouti and Eritrea, north of Somalia, in the Horn of Africa, and connecting the Red Sea to the Gulf of Aden.