Somalia’s elegant colonial villas were left in ruins by two decades of street fighting among warlords and the seaside capital, Mogadishu, was dubbed the most dangerous city in the world.
However, now new housing estates are being built amid an economic boom as diaspora Somalians return and newly wealthy businesspeople capitalize on the relative peace in the city.
About 7km outside Mogadishu in what was formerly a largely rural area, new homes are springing up, with almost 50 houses now ready on an estate, builders said.
It was a “great honor” to back the estimated US$20 million project, Salaam Somali Bank official Mohamed Abdullahi Ali said.
Construction began early last year and the project was touted as offering commercial returns and helping rebuild the nation.
“It is a new neighborhood for all Somalis to buy affordable homes, by leaving the densely populated neighborhoods of Mogadishu, and to come and stay with families here,” Ali said.
“According to our plan, we are going to build 500 homes that can cover the residential needs for 500 families in the first stage and then will construct more houses,” he said.
Tens of thousands of people forced to flee their homes still live in plastic and rag shelters in the capital — sometimes in the ruins of war-shattered buildings — and more than 1 million people are still in need of emergency aid in a nation ravaged by famine in 2011, the UN said.
Car bombs and assassinations are still common and 22,000 African Union soldier fights alongside the Somalian Army to protect the internationally backed government from attacks by the militant group al-Shabaab.
The streets in the new estate offer a very different vision of Mogadishu.
Those returning to Somalia — including investors wanting to start new businesses in their homeland — said the Daru Salaam estate offers them a more secure place to live.
“I came back to this city to buy a new home in Daru Salaam neighborhood... the houses are well built,” said Abdiqadar Jimale Roble, 34, who grew up in Sweden from the age of 12 after Somalia spiraled into civil war in the early 1990s.
“I have been out of Somalia for long time but I came back because everybody needs his country — and the country is making much progress,” Roble said. “I had to take part in that progress, and everybody should have a house in his country.”
For those returning with dollars earned abroad, the estate reflects the possible profits to be made even in a still dangerous nation.
Sadia Sheikh Ahmed, who also grew up in Sweden after fleeing Somalia, said she had helped her relatives abroad buy property.
“Initially we wanted to buy two houses, but now we and our relatives have bought eight homes, scheduled to be completed soon,” she said.
A two-floor house can cost about US$130,000, while a more simple bungalow is worth about US$70,000.
Those are hefty sums in one of the poorest nation in the world, with a GDP per capita of only US$284, according to the World Bank, against a sub-Saharan Africa average of US$1,300.
Development indicators are “among the lowest in the world,” the World Bank said, adding that the Horn of Africa nation is “heavily dependent” on aid and remittances.
More than 308,000 children are acutely malnourished, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.
“After more than two decades of violence and political instability, Somalia is on a positive trajectory,” the office said, while warning the “promising trend” takes place amid a “precarious” humanitarian and security situation.
“Humanitarian needs remain vast and Somalia’s humanitarian crisis remains among the largest and most complex in the world,” the office added.
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