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[00:00.37] Hafsa Omer wears the red, white, and green flag of Somaliland while playing basketball.

[00:09.89] The 21-year-old is the captain of the team.

[00:14.40] Her dream is to one day play for her nation.

[00:18.65] But there is a problem: Somaliland is not a recognized country.

[00:25.67] The breakaway territory in the Horn of Africa has struggled to gain international recognition from any foreign government.

[00:36.69] The territory has been governing itself and enjoying comparative peace and stability since declaring independence in 1991.

[00:49.22] Omer and her two sisters play for Hargeisa Girls Basketball.

[00:55.48] It is the first all-girls team in the territory.

[01:00.73] She and her sisters aim to put Somaliland on the map.

[01:07.00] They plan on doing so by using their more than 10,000 followers on social media.

[01:15.01] She said, “Somaliland is looking for their recognition and we believe that we could be part of bringing the recognition...”

[01:26.80] She said they could do that “by wearing the flags, by talking about our country, by promoting it through the short video TikToks or Instagram pictures,” she said.

[01:40.07] TikTok and Instagram are two popular social media sites.

[01:45.33] Somaliland’s sovereignty came into question in January.

[01:52.34] That was when local officials said they would give landlocked neighboring country Ethiopia access to the Red Sea.

[02:03.36] The territory said it would do that in return for recognition as an independent country.

[02:10.37] That caused diplomatic conflict with Somalia’s federal government.

[02:16.39] Somalia considers Somaliland part of its territory.

[02:21.89] It rejected the deal permitting Ethiopia to lease 20 kilometers around the port of Berbera.

[02:31.16] It would have given Ethiopia access to the Red Sea for 50 years for its navy and large shipping boats.

[02:40.93] Somaliland officials say they have a strong case to become Africa’s 55th nation.

[02:48.95] Once under British control, the territory now has its own police force, coast guard, passports, and money.

[02:58.97] It also has a government and a working democratic political system.

[03:05.23] That record is very different than the situation in Somalia.

[03:11.24] In Somalia, government forces have been fighting the militant group al Shabaab.

[03:19.26] The group has links to the terrorist group al Qaeda.

[03:28.77] Omer sees her support of Somaliland’s independence as part of her father and uncles’ armed struggle in the 1980s against the dictator Siad Barre.

[03:37.04] "My dad talks about it every day, what he and his friends had been through, while he watched his cousins dying in front of him," she said.

[03:48.31] While the territory of around 3.5 million people may not gain international recognition soon, Omer has made progress in supporting women’s rights in the conservative territory.

[04:03.59] Since she founded Hargeisa Girls Basketball in 2018, other female teams have come together for an all-girls league.

[04:14.86] For her sister Fatima Omer, basketball serves both goals.

[04:20.87] She said, “We just want the world to see us.”