Kismayo Housing Collapse Leaves at Least 47 Homeless

On 2 September 2019, Wardheer News reported that at least 47 people were left homeless after houses in a donor-funded housing scheme in Kismayo, southern Somalia, collapsed. The report, citing Radio Ergo, said the collapsed houses were built in 2016 in the Midnimo and Madina neighbourhoods for displaced families under an aid-agency housing project.

Muslima Ali Adan told Wardheer News that her house in Madina collapsed on her and her five children on 8 July, and she had been sleeping in a makeshift shanty since then. Her 11-year-old daughter was admitted to Kismayo district hospital with back injuries and spent six days there; treatment was free but medicines had to be bought.

According to Wardheer News, the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) is one of the agencies involved in the housing project. NRC built 750 of the 950 houses in Madina. NRC's Jubbaland head Abdullahi Omar Kaynan said each house cost $950 to build and that families were told the houses were not permanent. He said the houses were meant to be temporary or transitional structures, pending the acquisition of title deeds for the land by the authorities to enable the construction of permanent houses.

Midnimo chairperson Osman Kalil Okash told Wardheer News that 37 houses had collapsed and that others were looking precarious. He said about 3,000 families live in the Midnimo area. The chairperson said another 100 houses had developed cracks and were about to collapse, but the people had nowhere else to go. He said the houses did not have strong stone foundations and had started developing cracks almost immediately after they were built due to the lack of adequate cement used in the concrete.

Muslima told Radio Ergo that her house had been developing cracks for months. She said they informed the camp leader, who reported to the aid agencies involved in the housing project. Muslima arrived in Kismayo in 2011 after her livestock died in the drought.

Amina Kowsow Kalil, 17, told Wardheer News that one wall of her family's house in Midnimo collapsed at night without injuring them. She said her father's donkey-cart income is insufficient to rebuild; their mother died last year.

Wardheer News reported that repair work was being undertaken on the damaged houses at the time of the report.

What the report does not establish: the current status of the affected families or the housing project after September 2019; whether any independent investigation, engineering assessment, or official inquiry into the collapses was conducted; the exact number of houses that collapsed, as differing figures are provided; the total number of houses built in the project; the full list of aid agencies involved; whether the houses were built to any specific standards or codes; any legal or accountability actions taken; the date of the collapse events beyond a July 2019 timeframe; the scope, progress, or completion of the repair work; and the currency of the $950 unit cost.