In the shiny boardrooms of Hargeisa and the bustling docks of Berbera, a group of men are getting very rich. They drive the latest SUVs, they build the tallest hotels, and they are hailed as the “backbone of our economy.” But look closer at what they are selling you. Look at the rice, the milk, and the medicine.
The truth is darker: Somaliland’s business elite is currently engaged in the most profitable mass-poisoning in our nation’s history. They aren’t just selling products; they are selling slow-acting death, and they are doing it with a smile.
The $300 Million Milk Scam
Somaliland is a nation of livestock. We are the world’s exporters of goats and camels. Yet, every year, we hand over $300 million to foreign companies and local middlemen for “milk” that never saw a cow.
The liquid in those cartons is not milk. It is a chemical cocktail—white-colored water stabilized with additives to survive years in a shipping container without refrigeration. Real milk dies in days; this “poison” lives for three years on a shelf.
The irony is sickening. Saudi Arabia—a desert—imports our live animals because they want real nutrition. In return, we take their money and buy back containers of synthetic powder and liquid “milk” made in countries that don’t even have livestock. We are trading our lifeblood for their lab-made waste. One liter of this imported “poison” costs less than a dollar after taxes and shipping—that price alone should tell you it isn’t food. It is a health risk in a carton, and our children are the first victims.
The Rice Crisis: Arsenic on Every Plate
For years, we have trusted rice as our national staple. But as our families drain their life savings to fly to India for cancer treatment, we have to ask: What are we eating?
Dr. Cabdirisaaq Cartan has bravely broken the silence. Rice is a sponge for arsenic, a Group 1 carcinogen. In Somaliland, we don’t just eat rice; we consume mountains of it three times a day. We are importing low-grade, expired, and poorly stored Basmati from South Asia that would be rejected by any nation with a functioning health department.
While the “Business Kings” count their profits from these shipments, our people are developing bladder, skin, and lung cancers at rates never seen before. The silence from the Ministry of Health is bought and paid for by the very merchants who fill our warehouses with this toxic grain.
Repackaged Death: The Medicine Racket
Somaliland’s Crackdown: Yemeni Nationals Arrested for Repackaging Expired Medicine
If the food doesn’t kill you, the “cure” might. A recent police bust in Hargeisa uncovered Yemeni nationals repackaging expired drugs with fake labels from China. This isn’t an isolated incident; it is a business model.
When a “businessman” imports $9,000 worth of fake cartons to make expired medicine look new, he isn’t just a fraud—he is a murderer. People like Sado Mohamud, who suffered a stroke after taking a “new” prescription from an unregulated clinic, are the collateral damage of a market that favors volume over life.
The Cost of “Cheap”
Somalilanders are poor and vulnerable, and the rich man knows it. They tell you it’s “cheap” so you can afford to feed your family. But is it cheap when you have to sell your land to pay for a biopsy in Addis Ababa? Is it cheap when your child develops a mysterious rash or a fever from fake powdered milk?
These businessmen are killing the very market they want to make money from. A dead customer cannot buy rice. A sick nation cannot build an economy.
The merchants of Hargeisa have a choice: become honest builders of this nation, or continue being its undertakers. For the rest of us, the message is simpler: Stop buying your own funeral.
Somaliland: How Fake and Expired Medicines Are Putting Lives at Risk
