Baraawe (Barawa, Brava)

Where it is

Baraawe sits on the Indian Ocean coast of Lower Shabelle, south-west of Marka and Mogadishu, at about 1.11°N, 44.03°E (Wikidata). It is the capital of South West State and that state's main sea port (Wikipedia: Barawa). The town has many names: Baraawe in Somali, Barawy in Maay, Brava in Italian and Barāwa in Arabic (Wikipedia: Barawa). See also the Lower Shabelle region page and South West State.

Early history

Oral history says the town was founded by Aw-Ali, a holy man of the Tunni, a Digil group, and that the Tunni were its first settlers (Wikipedia: Barawa). The geographer Ibn Sa'id, writing in the 1200s, described Baraawe as one of the three main towns of the coast with Mogadishu and Marka, and al-Idrisi described its coral houses (Wikipedia: Barawa).

In 1430 Baraawe was one of 18 western ports named in a decree of the Ming Xuande Emperor, written as Pu-la-wa (不喇哇). The Chinese sailor Fei Xin, who travelled with the Ming treasure fleets, wrote about its people (Wikipedia: Barawa).

The Portuguese attack and later rule

In 1506 a Portuguese fleet under Tristão da Cunha attacked the town, burned and looted it. The people who had fled inland came back and rebuilt it, and the Portuguese did not hold it (Wikipedia: Barawa; Duarte Barbosa's account, Hakluyt Society 1866).

In the 1800s the town paid tribute to the Geledi Sultanate inland. A British parliamentary account of 1876 records that Abobokur Yusuf, brother of Sultan Ahmed Yusuf, drew about 2,000 dollars a year from Baraawe (Wikipedia: Barawa). Italy took the town as a protectorate in 1908 and it became part of Italian Somaliland (Wikipedia: Barawa).

See also the Geledi Sultanate.

A centre of learning

Baraawe produced many religious scholars. Among them is Sheikh Uways al-Barawi, founder of the Uwaysiyya branch of the Qadiriyya order, who was killed in 1909. The female poet-saint Dada Masiti also came from the town (Wikipedia: Barawa; Kassim, Dada Masiti). In the 1940s and 1950s the town was a stronghold of the Hizbiya Digil-Mirifle party (Wikipedia: Barawa).

People and languages

The Tunni are the largest group in the town. Garre, Sheekhaal, Marehan and Bravanese people also live there (Wikipedia: Barawa). The Bravanese speak Chimini (Chimwiini), a form of Swahili. The Tunni speak their own Somali dialect, and others speak standard Somali (Wikipedia: Barawa). The town was known for weaving and for hand-made goods such as sandals, Quran rests and carved wedding beds (Wikipedia: Barawa).

Population figures differ widely. Wikidata gives 32,800 (Wikidata). The English Wikipedia article gives about 260,800 for the town and 350,800 for the district (Wikipedia: Barawa). The 2005 UNDP rural and urban estimate is the older official baseline (UNDP 2005).

Since 2009

Al-Shabaab took control of Baraawe in 2009. In September 2009 a US raid near the town killed Saleh Ali Saleh Nabhan (VOA, 2009). In October 2013 a US Navy SEAL raid on a beach house in the town did not reach its target (Army Times, 2013). Somali forces and AMISOM troops took the town in October 2014 during Operation Indian Ocean (Al Jazeera, 2014).

In February 2025 South West State signed a $500 million deal with a Kuwaiti firm to develop Baraawe port (Hiiraan Online, 2025).

Sources

• Wikipedia: Barawa
• Wikidata Q613246
• Al Jazeera, "Taking Barawe", 2014
• Hiiraan Online, Barawa port deal, 2025
• UNDP 2005 population estimates