Hargeysa,(nsidesomalia.org) Eastern Somaliland is ravaged by drought and acute water shortages, the vice president of the breakaway Somali republic said on Tuesday.

Ahmed Yusuf Yasin urged rich nations to send relief to avert "a calamity" and he called on his countrymen to pray.

"I call on the people to pray individually and in mosques for the next eight days," he told a news conference.

"I also recommend they gather in public, if it doesn't rain, with all schools closed and work stopped for general prayer on the ninth day."

Yasin also ordered all relevant government departments to report on the full extent of the crisis before Friday.

Somaliland, an entity which broke away from Somalia in 1991, is not internationally recognized but has a working political system, government institutions, a police force and its own currency. Over the past 16 years, it has attempted to garner support in hopes of becoming a sovereign state, albeit with little success.

In contrast, Puntland, an autonomous state directly south of Somaliland, does not wish to be recognized as an independent entity but rather as part of federal Somalia. Puntland's declaration of autonomy in 1998 was aimed at evading the clan warfare encompassing the region at that time.

Between 1998 and 2004, Somaliland and Puntland's conflict primarily revolved around the regions of Sool and Sanaag in northern Somalia, including the Sool provincial capital Las Anod. Geographically, the two regions fall within the borders of pre-independence British Somaliland. However, the Warsangeli and Dhulbahante communities compose the majority of the area's occupants and are also members of the larger Darod clan who associate themselves with the residents of Puntland

In 2004, the Somali parliament elected Yusuf as president and tasked him with setting up the first national government the country had seen in 13 years. At his inaugural speech, Yusuf reassured his " brothers in the north who call themselves Somaliland" that further conflict was not an option.

During last year and earlier this year confrontations sill continue between Somaliland and Puntland mainly at Sool region where Somaliland forces took control of Las Anod town, the provincial capital of Sool region and still holding.

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