Peace accord

last updated 8 January 2015

Mogadishu, Somalia

Somali warlords and tribal chiefs signed a peace agreement this week in an attempt to end 13 years of anarchy and sporadic warfare. Kenyan officials, who brokered the deal, said a new government could be formed within a month. Somalia has been engulfed by chaos since 1991, when dictator Mohammed Siad Barre was overthrown and no single warlord was strong enough to replace him. A U.S. intervention two years later was abruptly ended after 19 American soldiers were killed in the incident depicted in Black Hawk Down. Up to a million Somalis have died of starvation in the past decade, and nearly half of those remaining live on less than a dollar a day.