Minority group to be resettled

Over 8,000 Somali Bantus from Dadaab refugee camp, Kenya, are to be resettled in the United States next year. The Somali Bantus, a minority group from southern Somalia, are being screened for the resettlement programme, UNHCR spokesman Newton Kanhema told IRIN. Originally accepted by the Mozambique government - where the Somali Bantu have historical links - the US stepped in after Mozambique, devastated by recent floods, decided it could not cope with the resettlement.

The minority Somali Bantu are “treated like second class citizens” by Somalis, humanitarian sources told IRIN. Insecurity and the civil war in Somalia over the last decade made the group even more vulnerable, said the source. The first Bantus arrived during the slave trade in 1800s and settled on the southern Somali coast. Somali political sources told IRIN that most of the current Bantu population in the Juba valley were originally from Tanzania, Malawi, and Mozambique. Some of the Bantus in southern Somalia have kept their traditions and speak the languages of their ancestors, the source said. Those who have assimilated themselves with the indigenous clans they live with are known as ‘sheegato’, which means they are not blood line clan members, but adopted. Somali Bantus are almost exclusively found in the south, but many scattered during the civil war to parts of the north, where they work on buildings and take on odd jobs, the source said.