Athenry News & Views Summer 2026

Summer 2026

Famous for the wrong reasons, this dusty city of 4 million has been a settlement for 2000 years. I had arrived from Somaliland to a modern airport, run by the African Union, and met my guides. We went to our hotel in a bulletproof 4WD, accompanied by an escort of machine gunners. The hotel was in the large fortified Green Zone, a bubble around the airport. All embassies bar Turkey and Djibouti are inside it. Very high walls, sandbags, checkpoints, strong gates and towers - not Torremolinos but a brilliant climate! We toured outside the zone. This area was once Italian Somaliland. Even in the ruins, one can see the city’s former beauty. Around the decrepit harbour are the wrecked or abandoned harbour buildings, hotels, banks and embassies. We walked a lot. In this once cosmopolitan place, people were exuberant, some with European features. There were the shopping malls and markets, including an excellent fish market. Women sold a green plant, a type of drug. We passed the ruined parliament and paused at a few suicide bomber attack sites where hundreds had died some years back. In the street where the Black Hawk incident took place, it was strictly stay inside our vehicle! Streets are paved, broken or sandy. ATM’s only dispensed dollars. There were no traffic lights. But there are solar-operated street lights. And new buildings are springing up. There was an Unknown Soldier monument and in the Peace Park, there are amusements for children. Heading out of the city along an under-construction motorway, we came to Lake Jazeera with its many birds. Near the lake were its hotels, empty. The land was sandy with trees and scrub. At the beaches, people had fun. Somalia has huge numbers of camels and goats, its coastline extends thousands of km and there is oil offshore. It’s still largely a virgin land. Heading towards Mogadishu, our 4WD got bogged in sand. Darkness had fallen before we got moving. On our way, we passed halted buses, their passengers descending for security checks. They didn’t mind, it was all songs and laughter. The country is their home and their lives go on. Note - Somaliland is a province of Somalia which has declared independence but is not generally recognised internationally Travel - Mogadishu 2025

By Paul Holland

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