SomaliNet Forums

How come this empty city is suppose to have $2 Million?

When the city was full of Somailanders, it was estimated to be about only a million, but now since all Somalis have abandoned their properties to the local clansmen. How do they expect people like me to buy their claims?

It is actually over 2.5 million.

That city is quite big and has always been sparsely populated like the rest of Somalia. Somalia is quite big and the Somali population is not that much about 10million I think. Two and a half million is not that much for a large city such as muqdisho. London has a population of close to 8million and in some parts at certain times it looks quite empty, that doesnÂ’t mean it doesnÂ’t have that population or it is not a densely populated city.

The population of Muqdisho has actually grown. I think I came across statistics that estimated the growth at 3%. Anyway, the population of the capital was more than 1 million, I donÂ’t know where you got that statistic from. Maybe you are referring to pre-independence or something. There are a lot of internally displaced people from other regions who live in the capital. There are also many refugees who returned back to their homes in recent years. And despite what you might think, there are still many ethnic somalilanders still living in the capital. They were never affected by the war. In fact, even the mareexan were not affected much by the war and you could still see many living and trading in the capital. In recent years there have also been many people returning from the west and arab countries back to their homes and some building new homes. The real estate sector is booming. The point is, the city is bigger than 2.5 million and will be even bigger in a couple of years as more people return.

More people live in mogadishu than the Issaq Republic.
Oops! "Somaliland" 90% of somalis excluded.

According to Sheikh Shaariif the population of Xamar is at least 2.5 million just like "eyes-only" stated.


Listen from 6.10 min

http://www.xornimo.com/wareysiyo/shshar ... 8-2006.ram

Eyes
2.5 million? That seems awfully high. It was etimated at 900,000 to 1,200,00 people when I was there in 93-94. There's a lot of internally discplaced persons there. So I think a good count is tough to come by.

MAD MAC,

IDPs who deciode to stay in Muqdisho are a tiny minority. The majority go to Kenya refugee camps. Every picture I saw of the current Muqdisho reminded me of Hargeisa 1991-1992. There are trees growing all over the place even inside old two storey buildings.

Crazy
Well, you would probably know better than I. It's been a long time since I was there. But the city infrastructure was not built for 2 million people. That's for sure.

I would think there still has to be a fair number of IDPs, but who really knows?