About Djibouti

Auto/Stop

With a population of under 800,000 Djibouti differs in many ways from other African nations. It has had contact with the Arabian peninsula for more than a thousand years and even one of its national languages is Arabic. Djibouti was ruled in the nineteenth century by a Sultan, but by 1862 the French had started purchasing land there and eventually expanded it into a colony known as French Somalialand, broadly reflecting Djibouti's current boundaries. The colony gained its independence from France in 1977, and was renamed the Republic of Djibouti, however was essentially two countries in one representing the Afars and the Issas.

Following independence Hassan Gouled APTIDON installed a Issas led one-party state and he continued to serve as president of the country until 1999. Afars unrest was prevalent during the 1990s and has been described as civil war, however a peace treaty was signed in 2000 and since then there have been multi-party elections, even if the current president won his last election with 100% of the vote!

Despite its location next to the sea, Djibouti is little visited by outsiders, except for the French with their colonial ties, however it is used a military base for the USA, which brings important revenue into the country, where unemployment is estimated to be between 40-50% of the working population. This is partly because Djibouti has few natural resources and insufficient rainfall and arable land (most of the country is a stony desert) to feed itself, having to import most foodstuffs. Given its location Djibouti is seen to have a strategic role in the so-called 'War on Terrorism' as it is situated across from the Gulf states, and the newly emerging concerns about Yemen. However Djibouti itself is a predominately Muslim country with each and every town and village having its own Mosque.

Sixty per cent of the country's population live in the capital city of Djibouti, the rest are mainly nomadic herdsmen. Education is a major problem in Djibouti with under 30% of children attending school, much less for girls. There are also very few pre-school or infancy learning programs for children in Djibouti. For every ten children who survive childbirth in the country one will have died before his or her first birthday, and a further one will have died before their fifth birthday. Infant mortality is increased by the local custom of feeding babies water with sugar rather than milk leading to diarrhoea and malnutrition. Literacy rates in the country are 78% for boys, however this drops to just over 58% for girls and girls are usually subjected to genital mutilations creating other sanitary dangers in addition to the trauma experienced.

According to the report commissioned in 2009 by UNICEF and the Djiboutian Ministry for the Promotion of Women and Social Affairs, nearly 70 per cent of children are deprived of at least one basic right – including the right to water and sanitation, information, nutrition, education and health.