by DCtoMogadishu » Wed Sep 28, 2016 12:35 am
Replying to my own post in case it helps anyone else. I went, I'm back, I lived. The project hit a few bumps (technical, not security related), but it went ok overall. I'll paste some of what I wrote I wrote on another forum that helped me out, but I'll add in some details that I think might be more relevant here on BFC.
High points: The weather was perfect. The food was fine. The people I met were friendly. I got a decent tour of the city driving between the hotel and my work site. My company loves me for going, and probably loves me even more for staying way under-budget (this isn't a place to cut corners, and I certainly wasn't penny-pinching, but prices seem to have come down). And the biggest high point: I was incredibly impressed by the optimism almost everyone expressed. Somalia has been through so much, and it's refreshing to see that so many people have found the strength to put the past behind them as much as possible and look forward to beginning the next chapter. The optimism seems genuine.
Low points: The security situation does seem to have deteriorated over the past month. I'm not sure if things are bad enough to call it a pre-election offensive, but it's close. I knew that my movements would be limited, but unfortunately the recent attacks limited things even further. This was a business trip, and I was there to work, but I was hoping to find at least 10 minutes or so to at least see Liido Beach or the market from the ground. After the SYL blast, I didn't feel comfortable doing that. I'm a bit embarrassed to admit this (especially here), but my feet never touched soil that was not in either the airport complex, a government building, or an armored car.
My guides were diaspora Somalis who are very well-connected but a bit prominent. That prominence limited my mobility more than it would have if I went with more under-the-radar people. Not that I would have had much more mobility anyway. One of the employees at my hotel was a foreigner, and he told me that he has been in Mogadishu for 6 years, and he has only made one trip outside of the airport compound in that time. The same hotel employee mentioned that Western news reporters stay at his hotel pretty frequently. From what I can tell, that's parachute journalism at its parachute-iest, but you gotta do what you gotta go. My hotel was inside the airport compound, which is essentially the green zone of Mogadishu. There are a handful of places in this area that have rooms available. A couple of these places have some kind of minor web presence, but most don't. Some info re lodging in an old article on RYP's Somalia Report website is still current-ish. There are a few hotels and guest houses in the city itself, but hotels have been targeted pretty frequently. I researched accommodations pretty thoroughly, and there was only one hotel and one or two guest houses in the city that I thought were safe enough to even consider. So I considered those 2-3 places in the city, but ultimately decided to stay inside the airport complex. I'm absolutely confident that was the right decision.
There is a visible security presence in Mogadishu, and it seems to be working. However--and I am certainly no expert in security here--I wasn't all that impressed. Compared to other DPs I've seen, security seemed more reactionary and less thorough, at least in ways that are visible. The fact that there isn't more violence tells me that either my assessment is overly pessimistic or that Shabaab is now small enough that Mogadishu can survive with things the way they are.