Mogadishu, Somalia — Mogadishu’s top police commander has threatened to go after activists “in their homes” over a bitter land dispute in the Dab-damiska neighbourhood, sharpening a stand-off between security forces and evicted families who say they are ready to die for their plots.
Commander Mahdi Omar Mumin, widely known as “Macallin Mahdi”, issued the warning on Monday during a visit to the former fire brigade compound in Wadajir district, where residents who were removed a year ago have tried to move back in.
He said police would take legal action against people using social media and street protests to challenge the project planned for the site.
Threat over protests
Mahdi told residents that Somalia has courts and a functioning justice system. Anyone with a complaint about Dab-damiska, he said, should file a case rather than mobilise online.
“Those who complain in the media should know this country has law and order,” he said, urging critics to “go to the judiciary” rather than organise demonstrations.
He rejected claims that the land had been quietly handed over to businesspeople. Instead, he said, the Somali Police Force was building facilities meant to serve the wider public.
“We tell the public loudly: this foundation stone is for the Somali police,” he said. “It is a place to repair police vehicles, and a site linked to Madina Hospital and our police training.”
Mahdi said he had expected residents to welcome the project after they were forced off the plot more than a year ago, not to return in protest and accuse officials of a land grab.
“Instead of saying ‘thank you’ to the Somali police, they have come back out with protests and lies, and we know who is behind them,” he added, without naming specific figures.
Evicted families dig in
The Dab-damiska area, named after Mogadishu’s old fire brigade, has seen tension for more than a year. Federal forces cleared families from the land in an operation residents describe as forced and abrupt.
On Friday, some of those families slipped back into the area at first light. They said they had heard officials planned to transfer the land to private investors. They argue that if the site is not used for state purposes, they have the first claim to return.
“If it is not used for the state, then we have the right to it,” one elder told local media.
A woman from the neighbourhood said security forces detained several elders and young men when the latest protest flared. She said officers let women remain on the site.
“This morning we woke up here with Allah’s protection,” she said. “They arrested some of our men, but we women were left in peace.”
She vowed that residents would not abandon the land after more than a year of trying to defend it.
“We’ve spent a year and five months fighting for this place,” she said. “A businessman can’t just come and build on it. We will die for this land.”
Security lockdown
On Friday night, federal forces deployed in large numbers around Dab-damiska, residents said. Troops spread out along the main access roads and blocked entry into the neighbourhood. Some families who had entered earlier camped inside the disputed compound.
The area sits in Wadajir, a densely populated district of southern Mogadishu that hosts key government sites and crowded low-income settlements. Control of land there carries both security and political weight, making disputes especially sensitive.
Residents say Dab-damiska has now become a symbol of wider anger over evictions in the capital, where many people live in informal shelters on land that authorities classify as public.
They argue that projects announced in the name of “public interest” often arrive without clear resettlement plans, compensation, or transparent communication.
Government officials counter that reclaiming strategic plots is essential to rebuilding emergency services, police, and other institutions after decades of conflict and unplanned settlement.
They say new facilities for fire, police, and medical response will eventually benefit the same communities now protesting.
Land rights worries
International agencies and rights groups have long warned that Mogadishu’s land disputes and forced evictions risk deepening instability.
In 2018, Human Rights Watch reported that Somali security forces using bulldozers flattened informal settlements in the capital. The demolitions left thousands of displaced people homeless and wiped out years of aid-funded recovery.
Rights researchers have repeatedly urged authorities to halt evictions until they can offer safe alternatives.
An earlier Amnesty International briefing said mass clearances in Mogadishu, carried out to “clean up” the city, pushed already displaced families into even greater risk without secure new sites.
Humanitarian agencies say forced evictions have become one of the main protection threats in the capital.
A 2018 assessment by the Norwegian Refugee Council found that thousands of internally displaced people ended up “back to square one” after evictions. Many lost shelters, livelihoods, and basic services.
More recent research points to the scale and health impact of the problem.
A 2021 study on Mogadishu’s camps found that more than 500 internally displaced people face eviction on an average day, with families reporting stress and illness.
The study also documented repeated displacement as families moved from one precarious settlement to another, according to a peer-reviewed article on forced evictions and health impacts.
Donors and UN agencies have backed national eviction guidelines and “durable solutions” policies on paper. Groups such as UN-Habitat and UNHCR support efforts to improve tenure security.
But land rights organisations say implementation remains patchy and that local power brokers still shape who stays, who moves, and on what terms.
For now, Dab-damiska remains under heavy guard, with residents and police offering sharply different accounts of who owns the land and how officials made the key decisions.