Forgotten World (171): Comoros
It’s time to have another week of postings in my long-running series called Forgotten World – a look at parts of the world that hardly feature in our media or thoughts. You can check the previous 170 entries here.
Located off the east coast of Africa between Madagascar and Mozambique, the Comoros are an archipelago of three semi-autonomous islands with a population of just 860,000. They only acquired their independence from France in 1975 and, since then , have seen more than 20 coups or attempted coups. Despite this, the nation is regarded as the only real electoral democracy in the Arab world.
The Comoros is one of the world’s poorest countries with a young and rapidly growing population but few natural resources with the islands’ chief exports – vanilla, cloves and perfume essence – being prone to price fluctuations. Consequently the nation is heavily dependent on foreign aid.