The price of conflict in Somalia

Conflict in Somalia over the past 20 years has resulted in between 0.5 and 1.5 million deaths, according to a report entitled “Twenty Years of Collapse and Counting”, published by the Center for American Progress. During those two decades, Somalia has cost the international community $55 billion. Almost half of this cost ($22 billion) is attributable to piracy, with another $13 billion spent on humanitarian aid, $11 billion on remittances, $7 billion on military responses, peacekeeping and diplomacy, and $2 billion as the cost of international crime.

Human costs, in addition to those killed by the conflicts, have included more than 800,000 refugees and more than 1.5 million internally displaced people. Given that the population of Somalia was around 6.6 million in 1991 and more than one third of them live in the relatively peaceful region of Somaliland, the majority of people living in the rest of Somalia 20 years ago have either been killed or forced to flee as a result of conflict.

Around $800 million has been spent on the deployment of Ugandan and Burundian troops as African Union peacekeepers since 2007, and around 750 of those troops have been killed. Drone strikes, surveillance and counterterrorism operations have cost $495 million. Cash payments to Somali warlords have amounted to $105 million. It is estimated that 96% of direct bilateral aid to the Somali government has been consumed in corruption.