---
type: Place
title: Mogadishu
description: Two days in the Somali capital with armed security — a market where the camera isn't welcome, a beach still being used a month after 37 people were killed on it, sharks and turtle at the fish market, and dunes with camels at $3 paid by phone.
tags: [somalia, mogadishu, markets, fish-market, security, beaches, italian-colonial, piracy]
coordinates: {lat: 2.0349, lng: 45.3419}
timestamp: 2026-08-05T15:00:00Z
---

# Mogadishu

The capital of [Somalia](/countries/somalia.md), and the whole of Harry's trip.
He moves with two local guides, a videographer and an armed security guard whose
name the video withholds, and picks up a second armed guard for the fish market.

What he keeps noticing is that the tension is his, not everyone else's: people
around him are swimming, trading and getting on with the day.

## Hamar Weyne market

- **The second largest and one of the oldest markets** in the city — fabric,
  clothes, everything.
- **The camera is not welcome**, so he keeps it on himself. He notes this is
  routine for him rather than a Somali peculiarity.
- **The roads are terrible**, which he offers as the explanation for the number of
  Toyotas.
- **Donkeys are still working transport**, everywhere.
- **Mosques everywhere**, in a country he gives as around 90% Muslim.

## Liido beach

- **The site of an attack that killed 37 people less than a month before he
  stood on it.** It happened on a Friday, when the beach was busiest — which is
  the point, and which he says makes the odds on the quiet day he's there very
  low.
- **People are swimming.** Fishermen work, cargo ships sit offshore, security is
  dotted along the sand.
- **His own conclusion**, and the most useful thing he says all day: he is on edge
  and the Somalis are not, because for them this is ordinary life. Think
  rationally rather than emotionally.

## The fish market

- **Sharks dragged across the floor**, swordfish, and quantities of **turtle
  meat** — he warns viewers they won't like it and films it anyway.
- **Fish is cheap because Somalis don't much eat it**, preferring camel, chicken,
  beef and lamb. A coastal country that isn't a fish-eating country.
- **A fisherman's earnings** given as around **$1,100 a month** *(from video –
  unverified — the figure is garbled)*.
- Two armed guards accompany him inside.

## The old city

- **The Italian lighthouse**, built with the port when this was the Italian half
  of the country. Still standing, never destroyed in the war, just left to
  deteriorate.
- **The shell of one of the city's best hotels**, destroyed in the civil war,
  along with most of the restaurants around it.
- **Italian architecture** survives in fragments across the district.
- **A confrontation begins while he's filming**, possibly about him. His response
  is the rule he states out loud: keep walking, don't stop, don't stand there for
  two minutes. See [keep moving](/tips/keep-moving.md).
- **The 14 October monument**, where a police ceremony with a well-known singer is
  going on — traditional dress and dancing.
- **The Black Hawk Down crash site is refused.** Checkpoints won't allow it,
  because the area could count as al-Shabaab territory. The battle itself was in
  1993: two helicopters brought down with RPGs, a 17-hour firefight, **19 American
  soldiers and 500 to 1,000 Somalis killed.**

## The school for deaf and blind children

The section he says exists to show what is being built rather than what was
destroyed.

- **Small classes, two sharing each room.** The hardest problem the teachers
  name is that sign language differs between countries.
- **Harry donates $1,000** to the Yasmin Foundation, which runs it, and links
  donations in the description.

*Obs: the children are recorded here without names or identifying detail.*

## The dunes and the boats

- **Sand dunes outside the city**, where people come on Thursdays and Fridays to
  get out of Mogadishu.
- **A camel ride for $3** — with a seatbelt, which he finds funnier than the
  camel. Camels were the traditional way of travelling and are now a day out.
- **Paid by phone.** No cash changes hands anywhere in two days; he gives a number
  and sends $3.
- **Out on a boat of the type once used for hijackings**, now working as a tourist
  trip, with a reformed pirate he is not permitted to ask about piracy.

## Harry's tips

- **Keep the camera on yourself** in the markets, and expect objections.
- **Keep walking.** If something starts, don't stand and watch it.
- **Bring no cash expectations** — the money system is phone-based.
- **Take the guides and the security seriously.** He didn't move around the city
  without either, and doesn't pretend otherwise.
- **Don't ask for a safety verdict.** His own refusal to give one is the honest
  answer: nothing happened to him, and he won't extrapolate from that to you.

## Source

- [I Ignored Western Media and Went to Mogadishu, Somalia 🇸🇴](/videos/OApi-ZiH4TQ.md) —
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OApi-ZiH4TQ