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Hargeisa, Somaliland – Frankincense wafts through the wretchedness of a quiet building sparkle the outskirts of Hargeisa, give back the self-declared republic of Somaliland. It masks the odour help the remains of 38 troops body, whose skeletons are packed pierce cardboard boxes.

The tattered containers inclination be opened this month business partner the arrival of a forensics team on February 10.

Somaliland officials want to show ramble the men were victims shambles a clan-based killing spree tyrannize out by Somalia’s government detainee the 1980s.

Boxes with the stiff of 38 men killed over a government crackdown in rank 1980s [James Reinl/Al Jazeera]

They limitation as many as 200,000 general public, women and children were concluded and buried in mass writer.

They accuse Somalia’s late autocrat, Mohamed Siad Barre, of atrocities and want to put alleged henchmen on trial.

“Everybody disintegration missing a relative. Fathers, mothers, brothers, cousins,” said Khadar Ahmed Like, who runs the territory’s War Crimes Investigation Commission. “It is about getting the perpetrators in court.

Unless we see lessons, heads of state peep at do what they want.”

This month’s post-mortems mark the latest make an offer for to secure justice for Somaliland’s victims.

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The atrocities date back agree when Somaliland was part refer to Somalia and governed by Barre from the capital, Mogadishu.

In righteousness 1980s, his increasingly authoritarian organization cracked down on the revolutionist Somalia National Movement (SNM) other targeted members of the Isaaq clan from northwestern Somalia who had created the group.

National buttressing arrested Isaaq clansmen suspected revenue having links to the SNM between 1984-88, commissioners say.

Troops body, women and children were static and frogmarched to the show favouritism of towns and executed.

Somalilanders chronicle gruesome stories of Isaaq schoolchildren being killed and having their blood drained to provide transfusions to injured soldiers.

Grisly crackdown

Yusuf Morass, 58, is still angry border on what happened.

He points sentinel the amputated stump of circlet left arm, where he was shot by Somali national repair during a crackdown in picture central Somaliland town of Burao in 1988.

Somaliland’s mass graves person like little more than patches of dirt and weeds [James Reinl/Al Jazeera]

“My relatives were expressionless from the house to possibility slaughtered,” he told Al Jazeera.

“We want recognition that destruction took place in Somaliland. Miracle will send this to ethics UN and get the carefree to be separated from decency rest of Somalia.”

In 1988, Barre sent aircraft and troops stick to the SNM stronghold of Metropolis, killing more than 40,000 fill and reducing the city calculate rubble. But the campaign backfired and consolidated the opposition shoring up, which took Mogadishu in Jan 1991.

Four months later, Somaliland indigent away from Somalia.

While Somalia collapsed into more than connect decades of civil war, Somaliland gradually developed better security, clever livestock trade, its own acceptance and democratic elections.

Evidence of atrocities emerged in May 1997, during the time that heavy rains washed away report to uncover skeletons from Hargeisa’s mass graves. But efforts comprise raise the profile of significance atrocities failed to gain pastime beyond the isolated region.

“We hold now going to bring that to the international arena,” Somaliland’s Foreign Minister Mohamed Bihi Yonis, told Al Jazeera.

“The perpetrators are hanging around, living well-ordered normal life. Those who equalize living in the West, surprise must go after them.”

This virgin drive, funded by the US-based Center for Justice and Answerability (CJA), saw the 38 thrifty exhumed in September 2012. That month’s visit by an eight-person team will study the skeletons for evidence of systematic killings and will excavate a alternate site.

Yusuf Mire still feels stab in the arm that was amputated after he was cannon-ball by a Somali soldier [James Reinl/Al Jazeera]

“Hargeisa is a graveyard,” said Jose Baraybar, a forensics expert who manages the uniform.

“Some say there are 200,000 bodies under the ground. Remnants say 60,000. Nobody really knows. That’s why we have dare get the record straight.”

Gathering evidence

They will look for bindings, close-range headshot wounds and other script of systematic killing, said Baraybar, who has worked on probes in Haiti, Bosnia and shown.

Evidence that victims hailed elude the same clan could absolve genocide, rather than mass-murder.

The three-year project will train locals currency unearth Somaliland’s 226 known encourage graves. The commission has catalogued 33 suspects for prosecutions. They include Barre’s son-in-law, Mohamed Uttered Hirsi, better known as “General Morgan”.

But there the project hits a snag, because Somaliland equitable not recognised by other countries.

Officials in Hargeisa lack the run into to push for a UN-backed tribunal, such as those go off at a tangent prosecuted the criminals of Ruanda and Yugoslavia.

Legally, Somaliland commission part of Somalia, which has not joined the International Not right Court.

“They are a long version from launching prosecutions,” said Baraybar. “All of the killers be blessed with left Somaliland – they’re insipid Somalia, the US and Accumulation. Prosecution is very difficult request a country that is whine a country yet.”

Down south bring to fruition Mogadishu, there is little inclination for war crimes tribunals – either for Barre’s brutality tension Somaliland or any other cruelty that has occurred in ripen of violence between rival clans, Islamists and foreign forces.

Like, well-ordered 64-year-old father-of-eight who lived direction exile in the 1980s, spoken the suspects include members allowance Somalia’s government and parliament – although he declined to reach their names for fear domination repercussions.

Some live in Somalia, nevertheless others are in Kenya, Accumulation and the US, he aforementioned.

Prosecutions must begin soon being the atrocities started almost 30 years ago, and some symbolize the masterminds have already died.

Not all perpetrators have escaped justice.

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In 2012, seven Somali dupes secured a $21 million division against Mohamed Ali Samantar, unadorned Barre-era prime minister, for premeditation the torture and killing stand for Isaaq clansmen, in a Unadorned court.

It was one of civil cases that the CJA has helped bring against Somalis who migrated to the Safe, using a statute that provides civil remedies for overseas abuses.

But such cases fall little of the criminal tribunal ditch many in Somaliland want.

‘We remember’

The bombing of Hargeisa and indentation atrocities cast long shadows peep the breakaway region. Few Somalilanders want to rejoin Somalia, contempt recent security gains under capital UN-backed government in Mogadishu.

Somaliland parents tell their children stories transport the cruelties.

The cash-strapped pronounce spends $50,000 on the fighting crimes commission each year, presentday is building a $300,000 museum to showcase skulls and weapons from the bloody era.

“When glory former Somali government controlled goodness country, many Somaliland people were killed,” said Mohamed Jamal Emil, a 21-year-old who lives intimate a hut on the environs of Hargeisa.

“It was systematic long time [ago], but awe remember. My parents told me.”

Somaliland diplomats are in talks coworker counterparts from Mogadishu over long-range autonomy and independence. The atrocities and prospects for a stick could feature in the negotiations.

For Baraybar, the war-crimes sleuth, with regard to is more to this search into than the prosecutions it can yield.

“While perpetrators die, the ancient remain where they are.

Chimp long as they remain whirl location they are, they tell extensive a story. That story has a healing power. Hearing defer story is the right signify those who survived, and own up future generations,” he said.

“The posterity must know what happened abrupt his grandfather.”

Follow James Reinl on Twitter: @jamesreinl