‘A door opened’: Somali businessman helps displaced families secure land near Afgooye
MOGADISHU, Somalia — A Somali businessman has stepped in to help more than 60 internally displaced families secure long-sought land near Afgooye, fast-tracking a community savings plan that would otherwise have taken years to complete.
- Advertisement -
Abdinasir Ali Adoon said he was compelled to act after watching a BBC report about families in a displacement camp outside Mogadishu who had been pooling small monthly contributions through a traditional rotating savings system — known locally as ayuuto or hagbad — to buy plots. Under their original plan, it would have taken more than eight years for all households to obtain land.
“I was moved by how these families organized themselves and supported one another, despite being displaced several times,” Abdinasir said, recalling a mother in the report who described repeatedly losing her turn in the rotation. He also worried rising prices or a change of heart from the seller could derail the deal if delays persisted.
His intervention covered the remaining balances for the plots highlighted in the report, allowing dozens of families to receive land at once rather than waiting years for their turn. In total, 103 families had been contributing $4.50 a month to the group fund, and many had already been saving for more than three years.
For families accustomed to eviction notices and hurried moves, the shift from uncertainty to ownership landed with force.
“Our happiness cannot be described,” said Ali Hassan Ali, one of the beneficiaries. “We still had more than five years to go, and we did not know how long we could endure. Then God opened a door for us.”
Several mothers said the land is the first concrete foothold they have had after repeated displacements. “Today, I am holding land that belongs to me,” said Farxiyo Mohamed Nur Adan, who had been part of the savings rotation from the beginning.
Another participant, Fatuma Hilowle Ali Mohamed, appeared in the earlier BBC report and had braced for a long wait. She and 62 other families have now received official land ownership documents — a step the group once considered a distant milestone.
A plan born from repeated evictions
The savings initiative emerged out of frustration with life in informal settlements on the city’s edges, where residents could be told at any time to move on. Community leader Mohamed Aweys organized the rotation after families at his displacement camp were ordered to vacate yet again.
“The hardest part is not knowing when someone will come and tell you to leave,” Mohamed said. “You move, you settle, and then you are told again to leave.” He said even rebuilding a basic shelter is beyond reach for many displaced people, who often lack the tools, money and time to start over after each eviction.
Despite the long timeline, he said, the group committed to the hagbad. “We knew this plan would take years. But our suffering was greater than the wait.”
Hagbad, sometimes called ayuuto, is a centuries-old practice across the Horn of Africa that allows people to pool small sums and rotate access to lump-sum payouts. In camps where families survive on irregular income from informal work, the system can be the only realistic way to accumulate enough for school fees, medical care or, in this case, land.
Why land matters for Somalia’s displaced
Across Somalia, families have been uprooted multiple times over the past decade by conflict, drought, flooding and evictions from informal settlements. In the outskirts of Mogadishu and along the corridor toward Afgooye, new arrivals often build fragile shelters out of sticks, plastic tarps and scrap fabric — structures that can be dismantled in minutes when landowners, private developers or local authorities order them to leave.
Without title deeds or recognized occupancy, families are at constant risk of losing whatever they build. Community leaders and aid agencies have long argued that secure tenure — even for small plots — is one of the most effective protections against repeated displacement, enabling families to invest in sturdier homes, sanitation and livelihoods without fear of being uprooted.
In this case, the difference between aspiration and stability was the time it would take to complete a rotation that was designed to be fair but slow. Abdinasir’s decision to pay the outstanding balances removed the most formidable barrier: the wait.
How the savings circle worked
- Participants contributed a fixed $4.50 each month into a common fund.
- Each month, one family in the rotation received the pooled amount to be put toward a plot.
- With 103 families participating, it would have taken more than eight years to cycle through all the households.
- Rising land prices or a withdrawn offer could have jeopardized the plan at any point.
By settling the remaining costs in one go for the plots highlighted by the BBC report, Abdinasir accelerated the outcome families had organized for — collective land purchase — while preserving the community’s ownership of the process. Beneficiaries emphasized that the gift did not replace their savings effort; it completed it.
“We built this plan together because nobody else would,” said Mohamed. “The help we received finished what we started.”
For Ali, the beneficiary who expressed disbelief when told he no longer had to wait five more years, the next step is practical: firming up boundaries and beginning to build. Others said they hope to put up simple rooms before the next rainy season and to pool resources for shared latrines and water points.
The human calculus of a timely decision
Abdinasir, a businessman based in Mogadishu, framed his action as both moral and pragmatic. The families’ diligence in saving small sums month after month convinced him that they had done everything within their power to secure a measure of stability. The risk of losing the plots to market changes gave his decision urgency.
“Delays could have changed everything,” he said. “If prices rise or the seller pulls out, all their sacrifices would be at risk.”
The immediate impact is visible in the documents now held by Fatuma and at least 62 other families — crisp papers that, for the first time, bear their names alongside a plot number. Those certificates are more than proof of purchase. They are a claim to a future that is not perpetually provisional.
“We did not believe we could own land,” Farxiyo said. “Now we can plan.”
For Mohamed, the community organizer, the lesson is that small systems built on trust — like the hagbad — can be powerful when paired with timely support. “People think displacement means helplessness,” he said. “But these families organized, saved and persisted. They only needed one door to open.”
As the group turns from saving to building, Abdinasir’s intervention stands as a rare example of how a targeted contribution, applied at the right moment, can change the trajectory for families who have spent years living one eviction away from starting over.
By Ali Musa
Axadle Times international–Monitoring.
