Evictions in Mogadishu and other Somali cities

The numbers

The two 2024 figures come from different counts and the source does not explain the gap. An EUAA summary of NRC data says more than 2 million people were evicted, many more than once, across Somalia from 2017 to 2025 (EUAA).

Where

In the first eight months of 2025, Mogadishu had more than 80 percent of the 140,000 people evicted in Somalia, most of them from camps in Dayniile and Kahda. At the end of 2024, 47 percent of 2,057 displacement sites in the city were at extreme or high risk of eviction (EUAA, citing NRC and the camp management cluster).

In 2024, Banadir (mainly the Daynile and Kahda districts of Mogadishu), Bay (Baidoa) and Woqooyi Galbeed (Hargeisa) accounted for over 90 percent of forced evictions (EUAA, October 2025). Other figures from the same source:

• Hargeisa: 41 percent of households in displacement sites rely on spoken, unwritten land agreements.
• Garowe: 36 percent of displacement sites face a severe risk of eviction.
• Beledweyne: the UN recorded the eviction of 180 displaced households in the first half of 2024.

Who is evicted

Those most affected are displaced people in towns, especially those living on private land without formal tenure agreements (EUAA). In Mogadishu, 87 percent of displaced people have no clear tenure arrangement (NRC, December 2024). Women and children make up about 80 percent of Somalia's 3.8 million displaced people (EUAA).

Why

Relative calm in parts of the south and centre raised land values, making property an attractive investment. A 2014 study found that evictions were increasingly carried out by companies, businesspeople and diaspora returnees, some using forged title documents (LAW and NRC, 2014). The same study calls abuse of camp residents by camp "gatekeepers" a serious and widespread problem.

In a 2021 analysis, private landlords carried out 89 percent of recorded evictions in Somalia and the state 11 percent (EUAA).

NRC reported more evictions led by government bodies in Mogadishu in 2023, including the clearing of 13 sites by security forces, which made more than 10,000 people move again (NRC, December 2024).

The cost

An NRC study found that evictions since January 2022 had displaced about 143,500 people and destroyed more than $4.6 million of schools, latrines, water points and other facilities (SOOHA, 18 December 2024, reporting NRC). An NRC study of minority and marginalised displaced groups in Mogadishu found 89 percent of households surveyed had been evicted or were at risk (NRC).

The 2013 relocation plan

In January 2013 the new Federal Government announced a plan to move almost 300,000 displaced people from Mogadishu to camps outside the city. The UN then counted 369,000 people in camps in the city, and the mayor, Mohamed Ahmed Nur Tarsan, said 270,000 would be moved (LAW and NRC, 2014, citing IRIN, 27 February 2013). Amnesty International and Refugees International reported shelters being bulldozed with little or no warning in 2013 and 2014 (same source).

Public land clearances in Mogadishu, 2024 to 2026

The federal and Banadir authorities have cleared sites they say are public land (Geeska, 6 November 2025):

• 8 July 2024: homes demolished at Dabdemiska, Wadajir district; police said the site would become a fire station.
• 27 October 2024: residents ordered out of Kalluunka, near the airport, in homes built in 1977 and 1978.
• 4 August 2025: Sinaay market, Warta Nabadda district, cleared; clashes left at least two dead.
• 7 August 2025: Belego Arab market, Shibis district, demolished.
• The government said the clearances would reopen 52 closed roads. About 100 government buildings in the city were said to be occupied by residents (same source).
• 23 August 2026: nearly ten people were hurt when security forces demolished homes in Tookiyo, Yaaqshiid district; the federal government said the land is state-owned (Radio Dalsan via AllAfrica, 23 August 2026).

Opposition politicians and others say some cleared public land was sold to private buyers; the article reports these as claims (Geeska).

Sources disagree

NRC gives 149,452 people evicted in Mogadishu in 2025; Geeska gives about 142,000 people displaced in 2025 (EUAA; Geeska).

Related pages

• Land law in Somalia
• Mogadishu