Italians conscripted Somali truckers for their 1937 Ethiopia war effort

Evidence

Next morning they learned that their brother was no longer in Mogadishu, as he was one of the many Somali truck owners and drivers sequestered by the Italians for the war effort in Ethiopia in 1937. — Abdi Ismail Samatar, Africa’s First Democrats, 190

Categorization

• XREF: Illustrates how Italy’s imperial wars directly disrupted Somali civilian life, a context relevant to understanding Italy’s relationship with its Somali colony before WWII.