The Somali community in Canada marked the 66th anniversary of Somalia’s independence with Somali Heritage Week 2026, a week-long programme of celebration held in the city of Edmonton, in the province of Alberta, from 26 June to the first of July, forming part of the Somali Independence Week commemorations observed on an exceptional scale around the world this year.
The Ambassador of the Federal Republic of Somalia to the United States and Canada Dahir Hassan Abdi attended the celebrations, joined by former ministers and prominent members of the Somali community, in a gathering that reflected the standing of Edmonton as home to one of the largest Somali communities in Canada.
The week was organised by the Alberta Somali Heritage Association (ASHA) and presented a varied programme that combined festive ceremonies, exhibitions of Somali heritage and culture, and productive discussions on matters of importance to the community. The Chairman of the Association Osman Mahamud Mohamed Shire thanked the participants for the time and the intellectual energy they brought to the week’s events.
Ambassador Dahir Hassan, who delivered addresses at several of the ceremonies and exhibitions, expressed his gratitude to the organisers for the effort they invested in bringing Somalis together. He urged the Somali community living in Canada to guard their culture closely, a message that ran through the heritage exhibitions at the centre of the week’s programme.
The dates of the Edmonton programme traced the arc of Somalia’s national story, opening on 26 June, the anniversary of the independence of the northern regions from British rule in 1960, and closing on the first of July, the day the northern and southern regions united to found the Somali Republic. The same span was marked at home with a national Independence Week that drew historic turnout across the country, closing with a ceremony at Villa Somalia attended by the President of the Federal Republic of Somalia H.E. Hassan Sheikh Mohamud, Prime Minister Hamza Abdi Barre and the leadership of the Federal Parliament.
The Edmonton celebrations took their place among a worldwide series of commemorations organised by Somali embassies and diaspora communities, from Algiers, where the Somali Embassy hosted around one hundred ambassadors and heads of diplomatic missions, to Birmingham, where Somalinimo Week runs until 4 July, alongside events held by Somali communities and missions in cities across Africa, Europe, Asia and the Americas.
For the Somali diaspora in Canada, estimated among the largest Somali communities outside the Horn of Africa, the week offered younger generations born far from Somalia a living connection to the language, poetry, dress and traditions of their homeland, the connection Ambassador Dahir Hassan asked the community to protect. The celebration of Somali identity abroad, organisers said through the week’s programme, is inseparable from the story of national unity the anniversary itself commemorates.
