Aar

HARGEISA — Abdirahman Yusuf Duale, known as Boobe, a Somaliland writer, historian and SNM-era freedom fighter who later served as minister of information, died on Friday in the capital. A 2019 biographical profile gave his date of birth as 7 December 1948 in Hargeisa. The cause of death was not reported. Boobe was educated in Hargeisa and Mogadishu, then studied in Italy and the Soviet Union. After working as a journalist and in the former military government's ideology apparatus in Mogadishu, he broke with the Siad Barre regime and joined the Somali National Movement in the early 1980s, serving in its leadership, including as information secretary. After Somaliland restored its independence in 1991, he served as secretary of the committee that prepared the national constitution, and in 1999 he was a co-founder of the Academy for Peace and Development in Hargeisa. President Ahmed Mohamed Mohamoud, known as Silanyo, appointed him minister of information in March 2012 and dismissed him in August that year. He was one of Somaliland's principal chroniclers of the liberation struggle and of Somali poetry and letters. His books include a collected edition of the poems of Abdillahi Sultan Mohamed, known as Timacade; Deelleey: Saadaal Rumowday; and Dharaaraa Ina Soo Maray, a documentary history of the SNM from 1981 to 1993, later deposited with the Library of Congress under the English title The SNM Liberation Struggle (1981–1993). Vice President Mohamed Ali Aw Abdi sent condolences to Boobe's family, relatives, friends and the people of Somaliland. "He was a mujahid and a great freedom fighter, a writer and historian who played an unforgettable role in the struggle to restore independence, in building the country, in safeguarding nationhood and in laying the foundations of Somaliland's statehood," the vice president said. President Abdirahman Mohamed Abdullahi, known as Cirro, also sent condolences to the family and the people of Somaliland, MM Somali TV reported.