A Young Guide Shows Visitors a Different Mogadishu, Beyond the Headlines of Conflict

Jazeera beach, on Mogadishu's coast, is where Sucdi Abdul Fattah Abdul Khader likes to start. The Indian Ocean rolls onto golden sand, palm fronds move in the sea breeze, and a short way inland there are dunes that some of her guests say remind them of the Sahara. The 23-year-old guide wants this to be the picture the world holds of her city, in place of the suicide attacks and young men with AK-47s that many people associate with the Somali capital.

Sucdi is one of a growing number of local guides taking visitors beyond the headlines. Her tours also cover the fish market, where guests see the variety of marine life along Somalia's long coastline, and parts of the city that reflect its past as a busy Indian Ocean trading centre, with traces of its Ottoman and Italian former rulers. Visitors try Somali food, including camel meat, samosas and traditional tea. Many arrive, she says, with expectations formed by years of news about insecurity, and leave surprised by how beautiful the country is and how welcoming its people are.

The work runs in her family. Her father spent more than three decades guiding journalists, photographers and visitors from other countries around Somalia, and he brought her into the business nearly three years ago. She began it as a hobby, she says, and it has become something she is passionate about. She now works alongside him and a team of guides, and she posts videos of her tours on TikTok. She is considering making content in English to reach people who do not speak Somali.

Tourism in Somalia is still a young field, and only a handful of people work as guides in Mogadishu. The business is seasonal. Sucdi says this year has been encouraging, though numbers remain low: five tourists in a week counts as a success. She is confident they will grow. Many visitors, she says, still worry about security, ask about their safety before they travel, and meet checkpoints around the city. Some people also question whether Mogadishu is safe enough for a young woman to work as a guide. She is determined to carry on.

The backdrop is long and heavy. After Somalia's central government collapsed in 1991, Mogadishu went through decades of civil war, destruction and displacement. Much of the city centre was reduced to rubble, and basic services largely failed. Al-Shabab, the Islamist militant group, withdrew from most of the city in 2011, and a federal government was established in 2012. Since then the capital has changed gradually. Returning members of the diaspora, local entrepreneurs and investors have driven a construction boom of hotels, restaurants, businesses and housing. Mogadishu is now a growing commercial hub, though insecurity and the legacy of conflict remain part of daily life. According to the country's tourism department, about 10,000 tourists visited Somalia in 2024, a 50% increase on the year before.

Some of those visitors describe the same gap Sucdi talks about. Chris Reese, an American travel content creator who goes by Authentic Travelling, has been to Mogadishu twice. His first trip, almost a year ago, was solo. He enjoyed it enough that he came back with a group of friends who had seen his videos. He recalls that before his first visit, what he knew came mostly from negative headlines, and that if you only read the news you would be scared to visit. On tour, his group has lunch overlooking the ocean and then heads to the beaches and dunes, which he notes are barely a 30-minute drive from the city.

Mihaela Patap, from Romania, had spent only a few hours in Mogadishu when she spoke, having come from neighbouring Ethiopia. She had already seen the dunes and the coastline. She says she sees nothing dangerous, feels safe, and finds people warm. She plans to post her pictures and promote Somalia to others.

Sucdi is realistic about the scale of it. Somalia, she says, has a long way to go before tourism becomes a major industry. Meanwhile she is continuing a family trade, building a business in a field with few women, and using digital platforms to reach audiences far beyond Mogadishu. Each visitor, for her, is another chance to tell a fuller story of the city. Whether that story spreads will depend on whether security holds and whether a handful of guides can become something larger.