Gunfire, bulldozers and f-16 jets: Inside Somalia’s bloody midnight raid that emptied a Mogadishu slum

MOGADISHU (Somaliguardian) – Somalia’s federal security forces killed at least five people and wounded more than ten others in Mogadishu on Sunday, local media reported, during a violent operation to forcibly clear the Tookiyo settlement in the capital’s Yaqshid district – one of the bloodiest eruptions yet in a widening campaign of slum demolitions that has left the city’s poorest residents with nowhere to go.

The operation began shortly after midnight on Saturday and stretched into Sunday, as security forces moved into the settlement to force out residents ahead of planned demolitions. Crowds of residents met the advancing troops with a hail of stones in a desperate bid to hold their ground. Witnesses said the response was disproportionate and indiscriminate: soldiers opened fire on the densely packed neighbourhood, scattering the crowd in panic.

Disturbing video footage circulating widely on social media appeared to show government “technical” pickup trucks mounted with DShK heavy machine guns – weapons designed for anti-aircraft use – being fired into the residential area, a tactic residents said was intended to terrorise rather than merely disperse.

Adding to the sense of siege, journalists and opposition leaders reported low-altitude flights by Turkish Air Force F-16 fighter jets over the neighbourhood during the operation. They characterised the flights as a show of force coordinated between Ankara and the federal government, intended to intimidate residents already bracing for the loss of homes they say they have no way to replace.

Beyond opening fire on residents at point-blank range, security forces have also been accused of storming homes and beating occupants – including children, the elderly and women – inside during a raid residents described as carried out with impunity.

“Cowards” who “flee” Al-Shabaab, opposition leader says

Former President Sharif Sheikh Ahmed, a prominent opposition leader, delivered a scathing condemnation of the security units involved, accusing them of battlefield cowardice against Al-Shabaab militants that he said stood in stark contrast to their brutality against unarmed civilians in Tookiyo. He said the same forces who abandon their positions when deployed against the insurgency had instead sought to appear heroic by opening fire on defenceless residents.

Land sold to the politically connected, journalists say

At the heart of the anger driving the unrest is a familiar and bitter grievance: residents and journalists say the land being cleared in Tookiyo has already been sold off to wealthy, politically connected buyers, including a close relative of the president.

That same figure, Himilo TV journalists said in a video posted on Facebook, was previously tied to a similar demolition at Mogadishu’s Siinaay market, where the cleared land was likewise funneled into private hands. Also named in the allegations is a former Banadir regional land-tax director, who was previously charged with corruption before a regional court.

The government has defended its wider clearance campaign by insisting the capital will not be allowed to harbour informal slums and that all such settlements will eventually be cleared.

But that position has drawn mounting criticism from residents, rights advocates and opposition figures who say the state has offered no answer to the most basic question raised by its own policy: where are displaced families supposed to go, and what, if anything, has been offered in place of the homes being destroyed.

A pattern beyond the slums

Residents say the demolitions extend beyond informally settled land. Authorities have also sold privately owned properties – including plots for which occupants hold legal title – to wealthy businessmen, displacing hundreds of families from homes they legally own. Security forces carried out the evictions by force, residents say, leaving many of the families destitute.

Even government allies break ranks

The scale of public anguish has drawn criticism even from voices generally sympathetic to the administration. Sheikh Bashir Ahmed Salad, one of the most prominent pro-government religious scholars, recently issued a pointed condemnation of the land seizures, calling on the authorities to fear God and cease abusing their power against the poor and defenceless.

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