Truly devastating. The livelihoods lost. The timing! The global inflation. The drought. The start of Ramadan. The woeful city planning in the way the suuq was morphing into a timebomb. The lack of water. The way people get in the way of emergency service making it worse not only for dealing with the emergency but also themselves inhaling all the acrid smoke.
It will take a long time to recover butmake no mistake Hargeisa/Somalilanders will come together and rise from the ashes of this tragedy bigger better and safer than ever Insha Allah.
Ramadan Mubarik.
Too early to think about this now, but traders need to be helped get back on their feet as soon as possible.
Good to see other markets take heed from Waaheen fire.
I think the city centre deserves a much better than that. We need something similar to Melbourne’s Harbour Town.
The land Harbour Town sits on is about the same size as Waaheen’s. It is something that the big 4 companies i.e. Dahabshiil/Telesom etc, could finance and get their returns over a number of years.
Here is the Google Earth link. Harbour Town
That’s too ambitious and most traders can’t afford renting this sort of place. There are already malls in Hargeisa similar to this and a lot of the rooms are vacant with little footfall traffic.
Europe has these markets where traders have stalls rather than rooms even.
Slap bang in the middle of London
Under railway arches
Marroco
For the time being they could use these in a different location, to get people back on their feet.
The original site will need lots of planning and funding.
I agree, temporary structure needed now. But this is golden opportunity to put in place a structure that will last a life time and iconic.
The land is already partly owned by the government and private citizens, they could form a private public partnership to develop a more modern market with open air option for stalls and small traders.
