Somalia: One year on, families reeling from conflict in Puntland

In 2025, for the second year running, conflict was the main driver of displacement in Somalia, uprooting more than 200,000 people from their homes, according to humanitarian data tracking population movements [1]. Military operations, including sustained air and drone strikes, escalated throughout the year.

Now in its second year, the conflict in the northern part of the country between Puntland Defence Forces and the Islamic State Group-Somalia (ISg-S) has displaced tens of thousands of people, disrupting a nomadic way of life that communities have relied on for generations. As a result, Bari region, where the fighting continues, ranks as among the regions hosting the highest number of people displaced by conflict in Somalia.

“We left in a hurry. We abandoned a house with four rooms, three water reservoirs and two farms. I had lived there for about 30 years,” said Sudci Ismail, 70, who now stays in a temporary house made of plastic tarps on the outskirts of a small village in Barookhle, Bari region.