Somalia: From Facebook Appeals to a Lifesaving Network - One Man's Mission to Transform Blood Donation in Somaliland

What the report says

AllAfrica, republishing a Horn Diplomat report from Hargeisa dated 21 July 2026, says Somaliland medical laboratory professional Abdilaahi Abdi Muse, widely known as Shicib, has turned a long-running volunteer blood-donor network into a mobile platform called Badbaado Blood. The platform is intended to help patients and hospitals find compatible volunteer donors more quickly during emergencies.

According to the report, Muse began responding to urgent blood requests in 2014 while still in secondary school, initially using Facebook posts, phone calls and personal contacts to locate donors. Horn Diplomat reported that he has nine years of clinical laboratory experience and has spent 12 years promoting voluntary blood donation and linking patients with donors across Somaliland. He told the outlet that doctors and hospitals have often contacted him when blood supplies were short or rare blood types were needed.

The report says Muse coordinated blood donations for 405 patients in 2024, involving major blood groups including positive and negative types. Requests reportedly came from Somaliland as well as Somalia, Ethiopia and Bangladesh, underscoring how informal donor networks can cross borders in urgent cases.

Badbaado Blood is described as a locally developed digital system through which hospitals or patients submit emergency requests that are checked before matching donors are notified by blood type and location. Horn Diplomat reported that the app includes WhatsApp notifications and information on hospitals with blood banks, with plans to expand. The initiative matters because, as the report notes, many families in Somaliland have relied on relatives, social media and personal appeals in the absence of a centralized, rapid blood-matching system.