A Somalian man chewing qat green leaves from Ethiopia, a popular habit among men. Qat green leaves produce an amphetamine-like high. The leaves are delivered daily by an armed convoy from a small airstrip in the desert where Cessnas fly it in daily. Somaliland is the breakaway republic in northern Somalia that declared independence in 1991 after 50,000 died in civil war. March 1992. Somaliland, the unrecognized breakaway Republic of Somalia..