In 1991, the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia disintegrated into fragments. Within a year, the vast majority of the world recognized the new nations of Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia & Herzegovina and Macedonia even though some of these had never been separate nations before and some were involved in brutal wars over borders.
Around the same time, the nation of Somalia also disintegrated. Like Yugoslavia, it had been held together by a dictator and with his passing, it fell apart quite quickly. Somalia had existed as a country since 1960 - it was the union of Italian Somaliland and British Somaliland (French Somaliland voted not to join and later became the nation of Djibouti). On May 18th, 1991, the portion of the failed state that had been British Somaliland, declared itself independent under the name of Somaliland. And was recognized by nobody.
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