Somaliland authorities on Monday arrested activist and poet Naima Abwaan Qorane upon her arrival at the Egal International Airport Hargeisa, Radio Dalsan reports.
Radio Dalsan Reporter in Hargeisa says that Qorane was whisked away by security agents at the airport after landing from Mogadishu.
Qorane through her poetry has been a vocal advocate of “Somali Unity” and “The Greater Somalia” agenda.
A regular visitor of Mogadishu Qorane had recently met President Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed Farmaajo.
She was featured in the TedX Mogadishu where she presented her Somali Unity poems to the audience.
She had earlier claimed to have received death threats and warnings not to return to her native Somaliland in relation to her “Somalia Unity” cause
“If it happens though I am not expecting the jail was built not for animals but for people. I will be released one day and the prison experience is not going to change my views” Qorane said in an interview in 2016.
Authorities in the breakaway region are yet to issue a statement on the arrest of Qorane.
Somaliland declared its independence in 1991 following the fall of the Siad Barre regime but it has remained unrecognized by the international community.
It has clamped down on any persons campaigning against what it terms “Somaliland sovereignty”. In February 2017 journalist and blogger AbdiMalik Muse Oldoon was arrested upon returning from meeting Somalia President Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed Farmaajo.
