Perspective: Africa (Sep 2016) Perspective: Africa (Sep 2016) | Page 21

Perspective: Africa - September 2016

Above: The Fish Abattoir Market in the Hamar Weyne district, Mogadishu, Somalia.
Hamar-weyne
One of Mogadishu’s 16 districts is Hamar-weyne, said to have been established over
1,000 years ago. Several ancient buildings have been found as having used milk as mortar, instead of water and cement.
Since 2005, massive efforts by SAACID and UN_HABITAT have been underway to rebuild this oldest of the city’s districts, including the famous Barduuro Market. Founded
in 1972, it was closed after 1991, and reopened in 2009. It currently accommodates 60
vibrant businesses. In 2016, it hosted an event to revive the culture of the city, perhaps
an indication of the people’s need to honor the extraordinary cosmopolitan and cultural
heritage that is Mogadishu, despite the constant efforts of Al-Shabaab to keep making
war on their country. The fish market is also a bustling venue.
The much reported piracy off the coast of Somalia developed largely after the collapse
of the government and the intrusion by international commercial fishing fleets. Somali
waters were being plundered and fishermen, feeling their livelihoods were under threat,
began demanding “taxes” from the ships. The dumping of toxic and nuclear waste in
that region by European Union ships mostly from Italy, Denmark, and Germany, and
sometimes also transporting hazardous waste from Australia, combined with the discovery of unidentified skin diseases and malformed babies, left the Somali people with little
recourse to combat both extreme threats and many used piracy as a means to fight for
attention and survival.
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