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Somaliland's Long Game

Somaliland's Long Game
Farah Mohamed
By 

Managing Editor, The WorldPost

Somali coastguards patrol off the coast of Somalia's breakaway Republic of Somaliland on March 30, 2011. As piracy has flourished and turned increasingly violent, an unprecedented 17 countries are prosecuting pirates yet Somali jails have borne most of the burden. Officials in Somalia's semiautonomous region of Puntland have had to release low-level criminals to make room for pirates in overcrowded facilities as many countries, particularly along the East Africa coast turn-away arrested pirates for lack of resources and/or infrastructure to try and incarcerate them. Most suspected pirates captured by international warships are released because other nations don't want to jail them, a reason piracy continues to flourish at one of the world's busiest shipping lanes. AFP PHOTO/Tony KARUMBA (Photo credit should read TONY KARUMBA/AFP/Getty Images)
Somali coastguards patrol off the coast of Somalia's breakaway Republic of Somaliland on March 30, 2011. As piracy has flourished and turned increasingly violent, an unprecedented 17 countries are prosecuting pirates yet Somali jails have borne most of the burden. Officials in Somalia's semiautonomous region of Puntland have had to release low-level criminals to make room for pirates in overcrowded facilities as many countries, particularly along the East Africa coast turn-away arrested pirates for lack of resources and/or infrastructure to try and incarcerate them. Most suspected pirates captured by international warships are released because other nations don't want to jail them, a reason piracy continues to flourish at one of the world's busiest shipping lanes. AFP PHOTO/Tony KARUMBA (Photo credit should read TONY KARUMBA/AFP/Getty Images)

Since 2008, Narayan Mahon has been taking photographs in the unrecognized states of Somaliland (a region of Somalia), Nagorno-Karabakh (a region of Azerbaijan), Transnistria (a region of Moldova), Northern Cyprus (a region of Cyprus), and Abkhazia (a region of Georgia), for a series called “Lands in Limbo.” Mahon, who is based in Madison, Wisconsin, is interested in what happens to these regions after they declare independence and their citizens, who often live in poverty, must redefine their cultural identity.

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