Editing Isaaq Genocide (section)

{{Act of Villainy|name=Issaq Genocide|perpetrator=[[Siad Barre]]<br>Somali Democratic Republic|crimes=[[Genocide]]<br>State crime<br>Mass murder<br>[[Forced Disappearances]]<br>[[Looting]]<br>Rape<br>[[Ethnic cleansing]]<br>[[Torture]]<br>[[Arson]]|location=Somali Democratic Republic|date=1987 to 1989|image=Exhumed remains of victims Isaaq genocide.jpg}}{{Quote|What began as a counterinsurgency against the Somali National Movement rebels and their sympathizers, and escalated into genocidal onslaught against the Isaaq clan family, turned into the disintegration of both government and rebellion and the replacement of institutionalized armed forces with fragmented clan-based militia. The genocidal campaign ended in anarchy, and the state collapse that followed bred further genocidal campaigns by some of the militia groups that then seized power at a local level.|Alex de Waal}}
The '''Isaaq genocide''' (Somali: ''Xasuuqii beesha Isaaq'', Arabic: الإبادة الجماعية لقبيلة إسحاق‎), or '''Hargeisa holocaust''', was the systematic, state-sponsored massacre of Isaaq civilians between 1987 and 1989 by the Somali Democratic Republic under the dictatorship of Siad Barre during the Somaliland War of Independence. The number of civilian deaths in this massacre is estimated to be between 50,000 and 100,000, according to various sources, whilst local reports estimate the total civilian deaths to be upwards of 200,000 Isaaq civilians. 

The genocide also included the levelling and complete destruction of the second and third largest cities in the Somali Republic, Hargeisa (which was 90 percent destroyed) and Burao (70 per cent destroyed), respectively, and had caused up to 500,000 Somalis (primarily of the Isaaq clan) to flee their land and cross the border to Hartasheikh in Ethiopia as refugees in what was described as "one of the fastest and largest forced movements of people recorded in Africa", which resulted in the creation of the world's largest refugee camp then (1988), with another 400,000 being displaced. The scale of destruction led to Hargeisa being known as the 'Dresden of Africa'. The killings happened during the Somali Civil War and have been referred to as a "forgotten genocide".

In the countryside, the persecution of Isaaq included the creation of a mechanised section of the Somali Armed Forces called ''Dabar Goynta Isaaqa'' (The Isaaq Exterminators) consisting entirely of non-Isaaqs (mainly Ogaden); this unit conducted a "systematic pattern of attacks against unarmed, civilian villages, watering points and grazing areas of northern Somalia [Somaliland], killing many of their residents and forcing survivors to flee for safety to remote areas". This resulted in entire villages being depopulated and towns getting plundered. 

[[Rape]] was also [[Genocidal rape|used as a weapon against Isaaqs]]. Human Rights Watch states that this unit, along with other branches of the military, were responsible for terrorising Isaaq nomads in the countryside. ''Dabar Goynta Isaaqa'' would later turn into a system of governance where local officials would put the most hard-line policies into effect against the local Isaaq population. The Somali government also planted one million land mines within Isaaq territory.