Port of Mogadishu

The Port of Mogadishu, (Somali: Dekada Muqdisho, Italian: Porto di Mogadiscio) also known as the Mogadishu International Port, is the official seaport of Mogadishu, the capital of Somalia. Classified as a major class port, it is the largest harbour in the country.

Since the Roman Empire, a commercial port called Sarapion existed in what is now modern Mogadishu. However, during the Middle Ages the port of Mogasdishu was very small and only with the arrival of the Italians in 1890 were the first improvements made in order to create a modern port. The port has since increased in capacity to become the most important port of Somalia and one of the biggest in eastern Africa.

The Port of Mogadishu was created as a modern port (called in Italian Porto di Mogadiscio) with magazines and docks in the late 1920s by the Italian government of Italian Somalia. In 1930 a protective dike with breakwaters was made in front of the enlarged port, which was connected to the Somalia interior by a railway and even by a new "imperial road" (from Mogadishu to Addis Ababa).

In 1934, the port of Italian Mogadiscio had exports of 43.467 tons of agricultural products (mainly bananas) to Italy and Europe. For this commercial transport were used the service of special container-ships called "RAMB" (that were built with the possibility to be converted to be an auxiliary cruiser). The Ramb II was a banana boat based in Mogadishu. This was the second of four sister ships all built to the same design: the other ships were the Ramb I, the Ramb III, and the Ramb IV. The four ships were built for the Royal Banana Monopoly ("Regia Azienda Monopolio Banane") to transport refrigerated bananas from Italian Somalia to Italy.

In 1936 the port started to have a weekly international ship line for passengers, connecting Mogadishu with Massawa and Genoa with the Italian Lloyd Triestino and Italian Line. The MS Vulcania was a transatlantic ship that served the port of Mogadiscio. Later, in 1941 the port was damaged by British bombings during World War II.

During the 1960s the port was improved, thanks to studies done by the US Army Corps of Engineers.

After it incurred some damage during the civil war, the Federal Government of Somalia launched the Mogadishu Port Rehabilitation Project, an initiative to rebuild, develop and modernize the port. The renovations include the installation of Alpha Logistics technology. A joint international delegation consisting of the Director of the Port of Djibouti and Chinese officials specializing in infrastructure reconstruction concurrently visited the facility in June 2013. According to Mogadishu Port manager Abdullahi Ali Nur, the delegates along with local Somali officials received reports on the port's functions as part of the rebuilding project's planning stages.

In November 2014, Minister of Transportation Said Jama Mohamed launched a new transportation reform initiative at the Port of Mogadishu. The minister met with local transportation union officials to discuss how to optimize the new system's implementation, ensure its transparency and accountability, and gauge their requirements and those of the owners of transported goods that they represent. According to Mohamed, the project's ultimate goal is to establish a fair transportation system. He also stressed that transport owners should make sure that their vehicles are in good condition and attain the standards of goods owners.