Somali police have forcefully evicted 70 families from farmland in an area between Raqeyle and Moro-dinle villages in Lower Shabelle, after a court ruling in a land dispute.
The Lower Shabelle regional court ruled that the 128 hectares of farmland belonged to a man who had recently returned from living abroad.
The judge, Barre Osman Hussein, said the documents presented by Osman Jama Yussuf proved his legal ownership of the land and he had therefore ruled in his favour.
The judge told Radio Ergo’s local reporter that four other men claiming ownership of the piece of land had refused to come to court, despite being called to appear for the past two months.
But a 90-year old retired army officer, Abukar Noor Mohamed, who was among those evicted, told Radio Ergo that he had inherited the farmland from his ancestors and his family had lived there for generations.
“The police evicted us by force without giving us prior notice,” said Abukar, who served in the Somali military for over 35 years.
Another evicted farmer, Bashi Mukhtar Bashi, 60, accused the police of destroying crops and confiscating generators used to power irrigation equipment during the operation.
The evicted families said they had not known there was a case in court over the land ownership until they were expelled by a court order in mid-October.
However, Osman Jama Yussuf told Radio Ergo he welcomed the ruling, saying he had bought the land in 1979 and lived on it until 1991, when the civil war broke out. He said some of the families who had been living on the land had agreed to move off after negotiations, but others had refused to talk to him.
“The ruling of the court is just, as it returned the land back to its rightful owner,” he said.
Disputes over land ownership have been rampant in Somalia since the country plunged into civil war in 1990.
