_{Africa Diary — Volume 2, Issue 8 (February 17th-23rd ’62) pg. 404; report by East Africa Standard in Nairobi}

Four nationalist leaders in French Somaliland, who have been in Djibouti prison for more than three years, staged a hunger strike for nine days in protest against their “continued imprisonment and ill-treatment by the French,” according to Aden reports on Jan. 31st.

The four are leaders of the outlawed Somali Republican Union (U.R.) which advocates that French Somaliland should join the neighbouring Somali Republic. They are:

• Ahmed Hassan Lehan Guhad, the party vice-president
• Abdul Rahman Ahmed Gabot, second vice-president
• Adan Shaikh Moussa, its secretary-general
• Barkhad Dereh, a member of the governing council

Mr. Mohamed Dahan, former party member and exiled acting secretary-general of the Somali Workers’ Federation in French Somaliland, said before flying to Cairo that he would seek support for the imprisoned leaders and the nationalist movements from the permanent secretariat of the Afro-Asian solidarity conference there. He also planned to visit London and West Germany to seek support for the Somali nationalist cause.

French Somaliland, a tiny territory wit a population of about 70,000, is on the Gulf of Aden between the Somali Republic and Ethiopia.