Seminar paper from the year 2013 in the subject Politics - Region: Africa, grade: 1,0, University of Applied Sciences Dresden, language: English, abstract: The American business magazine ,,Forbes” regularly publishes among various rankings „The world’s most dangerous countries” based on crime rates, police protection, civil unrest, terrorism risk, kidnapping threat and geopolitical stability. In 2012, the top three were: Afghanistan, Iraq and Somalia. The third most dangerous country, Somalia, is also on the top of many other rankings; for instance it holds the first place of Forbes ,,Most Corrupt Countries” ahead of North Korea since 2008.56) For 22 years, there hasn’t been any established government and even international interventions by the UNO and the USA in order to stop the civil war and restore peace failed; but what are the conflicts in Somalia actually about? This paper is going to explain the Somali civil war, it’s roots and future prospects. Therefore, it is divided in seven main chapters: geographical aspect, historical aspect, ethnic aspect, political aspect, social aspect, economic aspect and future prospects. Each aspect illustrates the particular part of the conflict and after the future prospects based on a personal assessment there will be a summary of the conflict’s main issues. Since there is neither an established government nor any other official registration it is hard to find reliable data and statistics. Most of them are based on estimates and cannot keep up with the fast changes. That is why the figures in this paper may not be absolutely correct but nevertheless they can give a general idea of Somalia’s situation.