Ethiopian reconquest drove hundreds of thousands of refugees into Somalia.

Evidence

In the wake of the Ethiopian reconquest of the Ogaden, hundreds of thousands of Somali and related tribesmen flooded into the Somali Republic in search of refuge. The government responded promptly to this human disaster, setting up a National Refugee Commission (NRC) and hastily establishing a string of refugee camps in the north, centre and south of the country. Urgent appeals were launched for international aid, which with the help of sympathetic voluntary organisations and other pressure groups in Europe and America achieved wide publicity and, eventually, a gratifying response in short-term emergency relief. The camps, which housed in some cases over 40,000 refugees, were organised by the NRC in collaboration with the Ministry of the Interior and, as time went on, developed their own internal organisation under camp commanders who might be teachers or other officials. Within camps, local residential areas were frequently named after place-names in the Ogaden, thus conserving ties with place of origin. — I.M. Lewis, I. M. Lewis, A Modern History of the Somali_ Nation…, 589

Categorization

• XREF: The naming of camp areas after Ogaden place-names parallels the identity-conservation theme in earlier chapters. — connects to: Ethiopia profited from the war at Somalia’s expense.