Mogadishu: From war ashes to housing boom

Somalia’s elegant colonial villas were left in ruins by two decades of street fighting among warlords, and the seaside capital Mogadishu was dubbed the most dangerous city in the world.

But now new housing estates are being built amid an economic boom as diaspora Somalis return and newly wealthy businessmen capitalise on the relative peace in the city. Some seven kilometres (four miles) outside Mogadishu in a formerly largely rural area, new homes are springing up, with almost 50 houses now ready on an estate, builders say.