Eastern Zone DCSA

Executive Summary
Mogadishu is the nation’s capital and the largest city in Somalia, known locally as Hamar; it is located in the costal Banadir Region. The Eastern
Zone is one of the four zones in Mogadishu (delineation made by the security institutions) and consists of four districts 1 : Karaan, Yakshiid,
Heliwaa and Shibis. Mogadishu has experienced an immense amount of political instability in the past three decades, the collapse of the Siyad
Barre regime in 1991 plunged the country, and the capital city in particular, into a state of anarchy. In 2006 the Islamic Courts Union (ICU) seized
control of Mogadishu from various warring clan militias; subsequently the ICU were then defeated by a combination of the Transitional Federal
Government (TFG), Ethiopian troops and African Union peacekeepers in late 2006 – early 2007. The ICU splintered into various different factions
after their defeat: with Al-Shabaab, the military wing of the ICU, the most prominent. From 2008 Al-Shabaab remained a prominent threat to
the ruling powers of Mogadishu and engaged the Transitional Federal Government (TFG) and its African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM)
allies in a prolonged period of conflict, however, in 2010 the TFG and its military allies succeeded in expelling Al-Shabaab forces from the city.
Since that juncture Mogadishu has remained in the control of the government, however, Al-Shabaab has continued to target the newly formed
Somali Federal Government and its allies with sporadic, but sustained, episodes of violence – notably - targeted suicide bombings and guerrillastyle
attacks. Many of the national institutions are based in the Mogadishu with the three main government pillars: the executive, legislatives
and judiciary all based in the city.
Continual assessment of issues directly affecting community safety and security is critical to effective evidence based programming, informed
decision making and measuring the impact of related programmatic interventions: it enables a better understanding of what works and doesn’t
work at the community level. With this in mind district level assessments map out and provide a better understanding of issues that affect
targeted communities across the Somali regions. By using key indicators for selected thematic areas, this report provides an assessment on the
state of conflict, governance, justice as well as safety and security in the Eastern Zone of Mogadishu. This assessment was conducted from 19th
to 23rd March 2014; the FGDs were conducted from 3rd to 5th March, while the KIIs were conducted from 14
th to 24 th March.
Divergences
There is a possibility for qualitative and quantitative data to diverge in mixed method research approaches - combining methods cannot always
be used for cross-validation purposes as they may not always produce one picture. Discrepancies were witnessed during both the data collection
and analysis phase. According to the quantitative data, respondents were witnessing very little or no crimes and their level of confidence in the
1 Mogadishu zones: provided by HIPS and later cross checked with the regional authorities
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