How Somali basketball team is changing country's image

The way their fans chanted in joy and unison, you would have been forgiven for thinking the situation is same back home in Mogadishu.

They wore T-Shirts written “I love Somalia.”

They lifted their country’s flag high. You could see the passion.

That was at the Nyayo National Stadium last week during the 2021 Fiba AfroBasket qualifiers in Nairobi.

When their team lost, they were there to console the players. But when they won, it would take security detail to take the fans off the court. They would celebrate and take selfies with the players.

“This is our team. We are very proud of them. They are giving us something to celebrate,” a female fan Sophia Noor said.

Somalia is known for anarchy. Young men have enlisted into militant groupings, the main being Al Shabaab.

They have turned Mogadishu into a war zone, a town where bomb blasts have become the norm.

It has been like this since 1990 when the civil war erupted making thousands flee the country.

The sons of those who sought refuge in Kenya then are now the ones out to give the country a different image through basketball.

REFUGEES

Nicknamed the Civil War Kids, almost the entire Somaliland basketball team that represented the country in Nairobi have never set foot in the country.

Most of them were born in refugee camps in Nairobi before relocating to the United States with their parents.

In the US, some picked up crime and drugs. Some found themselves jailed. They were not giving any better image of their country.

For instance just a few years back, nine Somali-American men were imprisoned by a Minnesota federal court, after they were found guilty of plotting to join the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS).

The Muslim leaders and Imams through their mosques decided to form the Somali Youth Development Organisation of Minnesota (SYDOM) which was able to bring most of the youth together.

“When we saw how they are suspected or labelled as extremists, we started to bring them together in order to prevent them from getting involved with drugs. We found a place where they can stay fit and stay busy and avoid negative influences,” Abdikadir Dahir Shiikha the coach of the national team said in an interview.

“It has worked because now we have most of our young boys in school pursuing different careers, then we also have those who want to play professional basketball,” adds Shiikha, a former national team player.

“Ours is a unique team,” adds Shiikha.

“We are here to represent Somalia because we love our country, regardless of all the negativity associated with it. We are not getting much assistance from government, but we are just happy to be here wearing the blue colours of our country and representing our people,” he said.

To be in Nairobi, all the players paid for their air fare. Then, Kenyan-based Somali business man Mohamud Jumale Awale, the director of Taaj Money Transfer company in Nairobi paid for their accommodation and transport and also aided in kitting the team together with a Somali-based telecommunications company Hormuud.

Most of the players are based in Minnesota, others in Canada while captain Yusuf Qaafow plays in Melbourne Australia.

In Minnesota, most of the Somali youth turned to basketball to build athletic skills and gain self-esteem and fend off negative influences.

With the support from the Imams and the Somali community in the United States, most of them have been able to go through college and are now playing basketball at a semi-professional level.

Shiika, a former Somali national has been in the forefront to bring together the youthful Somalians and train them basketball.

When the war broke out in Somalia in 1990, Shiika was with the national team in Ethiopia representing the country in the Zone Five games.

“We could not go back home. We came to Kenya as refugees before some of us moved to the US and Canada,” he says.

Most of the players in the current squad were conceived and born in refugee camps in Kenya.

“It is why they are referred to as Civil War kids.”

In Minnesotta, the play inter-Mosque games where Shiika has been able to pick a national team for Somalia.

Shiikha says the basketballers are using the sport to send a message.

SPORT FOR HOPE

“Our commitment to make to this tournament (FIBA) is clear testimony that we can use the sport to bring our country together.”

“To us, it is not just about participating or winning, it is about showing the world that our youth can also engage in other activities rather than extremism for which they are always viewed as.”

Team captain Yusuf Qaafow was born in Mogadishu in 1987 before his family moved to Australia. But he says he is always available to represent his country.

“We all feel the plight of those back home living in abject poverty as a result of the war. We want to shine and inspire the youth back home to take up sport,” he says.

Abdiqani Abdulahi Jeelo from the Ministry of Sports and youth played basketball before retirement. He says the sport can be used to unite the youth back home.

Basketball has a special place in Somalia. Each of the 16 districts in Mogadishu has a basketball court even though most of them are dilapidated, having been destroyed during the civil war.

“Back home we are embracing sport to bring our youth together. We have facilities, run down, but they are serving the community for now. This basketball team that played in Kenya is an inspiration to many,” says Jeelo.

Adnan Gulled, 22, was born in Minnesota. He has never been to Somalia but believes his role in the national team will influence the youth back home to take up sport rather than turn to extremism.

“I started playing basketball at the age of ten and I always wanted to represent Somalia,” he says.

“My parents are from Somalia and that makes me a Somalian too so I feel at home playing in the sky blue colours of Somalia,” he says.

Gulled’s parents were sports personalities and represented Somalia before fleeing the civil war. His father Abdirahman Amaan played football for the national team while his mum Deeqo Awil was a basketballer.

Somalia has always had a strong basketball tradition. Prior to the current chaos, the city Mogadishu had basketball courts all over, a vital ingredient in creating a culture of basketball. The Somalia basketball team of the 1970s and 1980s was stronger than Kenya and routinely beat their Kenyan counterparts.

Their national men's team won the All Arab games in 1979 and was third in the 1983 All Africa Games. More recently their women team beat a fancied Qatar in the All Arab Games in Doha in 2011.

Jeelo says back home in Mogadishu, the government is now looking at sport to rid the youth from the temptation of joining insurgent groups like the Al Shaabab.

The Somali Basketball Federation (SBF) also says engaging in sports has been an effective way of keeping the youth off the streets, abusing drugs, engaging in anti-social behavior and worst still, being recruited into terror groups known to prey on the youth.

Somalia did not qualify to the second round of the Afrobasket championships but they left a strong message that something positive can come from Somali youth.