Getting back to business in Somalia

By Karen Allen
BBC News, Kenya

Thousands of Somalis are streaming across the border into refugee camps in Kenya. They are fleeing the insecurity in their homeland since Islamist militants seized power earlier this year. At the same time, Somali businessmen living abroad are spotting new opportunities under the new regime and are flying home with potential deals in mind.

Nairobi's hotels are heaving with Somalis from the vast and wealthy diaspora

You cannot get a hotel room for love nor money in Eastleigh.

They have been packed for the past three months and the owners say they have never seen anything like this before.

Eastleigh - a bustling neighbourhood in the east of Nairobi - is where many of the city's 25,000 Somalis live.

This is not a ghetto. It is a thriving business community with freshly painted buildings, gridlocked traffic and a turnover of around £30m ($56m) a month.

That is extremely high for this part of the world.

Walk the packed streets and you will find women wearing the hijab, or headscarf, and rows of men dipping into big sacks of khat or miraa - the leafy narcotic that is chewed by so many here. It gives them a buzz and smoothes conversation.

This is Somalia recreated on Kenyan soil. And the numbers arriving are swelling.

Eyeing opportunities

So back to the hotels, why is business so brisk?

Well, they are heaving, not with recent refugees but with Somalis from the vast and wealthy diaspora.

They are en route to Mogadishu with potential deals on their mind.

The Somali community worldwide is huge and many send their money home.

In fact it is estimated that the value of their remittances runs to £527m ($990m) a year.

Aid to Somalia is less than a third of that.

In Eastleigh, the Hotel Barakat is doing a roaring trade.

It prides itself on good coffee and boasts a curious water feature in reception: a rather garish mini waterfall. Nice.

Hassan, the manager, is wide-eyed and flabbergasted by the demand for rooms.

Part of the reason is that Mogadishu airport, closed for more than a decade, has re-opened.

Commercial flights will get you there, across the Kenyan border, in less than an hour and a half.

So Eastleigh is a perfect stopover: a place to have a shower, catch the gossip and make some last minute contacts before the big trip.

And it is not just Somalis in Kenya who are taking a look.

As I loiter in the hotel lobby among a throng of Somali faces, an affable man in his 30s comes up to greet me.

Foot in the door

Abdi is from Wembley in West London. He seems a little out of his depth in this sea of seasoned businessmen, bristling with expectation.

He is about 30 and a bit of a charmer and, when I asked him what his business plans were, he went all quiet on me.

Abdi was a child when his family fled Somalia in the early 90s after the fall of the Siad Barre regime.

Now with recent developments - the end of warlord rule and the rise of an Islamist movement - Abdi wants to get his foot in the door.

He has never been to Mogadishu before and seems a little nervous.

Yet he is determined to return to Britain with a business deal.

Information through the Somali grapevine assures him the place is now safe - at least for nationals - and with no schools, barely any hospitals and no manufacturing to speak of, opportunities are there to be seized.

Security is relative in a country as troubled as Somalia

But the older Somalis I meet are a little more cautious.

In searing heat I find myself trudging across a building site in Langata, about half an hour's drive from Eastleigh.

Jeylani Ali, a prominent businessman, tells me he is biding his time.

The 50 houses under construction here, are all his. But Jeylani is playing it safe and keeping most of his money in Kenya.

Scramble to leave

Yet as fast as businessmen are queuing up to take their cash into Somalia, poorer Somalis are scrambling across the border into Kenya to leave.

In the refugee camps sprawled across the country's north-eastern border, they are arriving at a rate of 2,000 to 3,000 a month.

Many of them have come by foot, and set up home in this city of rags.

Flimsy tents made of thin branches and colourful bits of cloth are their homes now.

You do hear horrific stories from people arriving at this camp and it is hard to imagine how they will ever forget some of the things they have seen.

But there are also Somalis you meet who are trying to go it alone, slipping across the border illegally and setting up in business.

Trade is something the Somalis have learnt to do well and they are famous for it across Africa - particularly mobile phones, transport and property.

New dawn?

Back in the capital in a bustling restaurant where they serve steaming plates of baby goat and spaghetti, I am introduced to Mohammed.

Fresh faced and just 21, he fled Mogadishu last month.

Bribing his way past border guards he headed south to the familiarity of Eastleigh. Now he wants to stay.

I asked him why he left. "The Islamic Courts," he answers bluntly, adding that, by the time he turned his back on Mogadishu, the Islamists were already beginning to clamp down on cinemas and football.

So what does Mohammed think of the clamour to make money in Mogadishu?

Well, he is not yet convinced. He fears the Islamists may turn out to be as ruthless as the warlords they replaced.

He says all this talk of a new dawn is fake.

It is impossible to tell if Mohammed is right. Security is relative in a country as troubled as Somalia.

Trust the wrong person and it could cost you your life.

From Our Own Correspondent was broadcast on Saturday 19 August, 2006 at 1130 BST on BBC Radio 4. Please check the programme schedules for World Service transmission times.
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Published: 2006/08/19 10:41:39 GMT

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