Somalia's Disappeared: Inside the Black Sites Where Al-Shabaab Suspects Vanish

On the morning of March 14, 2023, Nuur Abdullahi Mohamed was sitting on a concrete floor in a room with thirty-seven other men. The room had no windows. He had been sitting in rooms like this for nineteen months. He knew the exact number because he had been counting days on a scrap of cardboard he kept hidden in his waistband. No one had told him why he was there. No one had charged him with a crime. No lawyer had visited. His family did not know where he was.

Nuur, a forty-two-year-old shopkeeper from Mogadishu's Hodan district, had been arrested at a checkpoint in September 2021. The soldiers who stopped him were part of the Somali National Army's Danab Brigade, an elite unit trained and funded by the United States. They searched his phone, found messages exchanged with a cousin in Kismayo, and placed him in the back of a truck. The cousin, it turned out, had once worked for a man later accused of having Al-Shabaab connections. Nuur had not seen his cousin in three years. It did not matter.

He was taken first to a compound near the airport that prisoners call "Godka," the Hole. Then to another facility run by the National Intelligence and Security Agency. Then to a third location he could not identify because he was moved at night, hooded. In none of these places was he brought before a judge. In none of these places was he permitted to make a phone call. When he asked the guards when he would be released, they told him to stop talking.

Nuur's case is not exceptional. Across Somalia, thousands of men and boys have been swept up in counterterrorism operations conducted by government forces, the African Union Transition Mission in Somalia (ATMIS), and foreign-trained units. Many are held in facilities that operate outside Somalia's formal legal system. Some are eventually released. Some are transferred to Mogadishu Central Prison, where they may wait years for a trial that never comes. Some disappear entirely.

The System Built on Emergency Powers

Somalia's detention system was built in the aftermath of state collapse. When the government of Mohamed Siad Barre fell in January 1991, the country fractured into clan-based militias. The central state ceased to exist. By the time the Transitional Federal Government was established in 2004, backed by Ethiopia and later the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM), the country faced a new threat: Al-Shabaab, an Islamist insurgency that controlled vast swathes of southern and central Somalia.

The legal framework for detention was improvised. The Somali Penal Code, inherited from the Italian colonial period and amended under Siad Barre, contains provisions for pre-trial detention of up to thirty days. But in practice, the National Intelligence and Security Agency (NISA) operates under a parallel set of rules. In 2016, the Federal Government passed National Security Law No. 10, which grants NISA broad powers to detain suspects in terrorism cases for up to ninety days without judicial oversight. The law was modeled on counterterrorism statutes in Kenya and Uganda. It was drafted with assistance from Western legal advisors.

In practice, the ninety-day limit is rarely observed. Human Rights Watch documented 317 cases between January 2022 and August 2024 in which detainees were held for more than a year without charge. The longest documented case involved a man held for four years and three months in a NISA facility in Baidoa before being released without explanation in November 2025. He was never told why he had been arrested. He was never told why he was freed.

The Boy From Afgooye

Ahmed Hassan Yusuf was fifteen when soldiers came to his family's home in Afgooye, a town thirty kilometres west of Mogadishu. It was June 2023. His mother, Fadumo Ibrahim, remembers the exact date: June 11. She remembers because it was a Sunday, and Ahmed had just returned from Quranic school.

The soldiers told Fadumo that Ahmed had been seen speaking to men associated with Al-Shabaab. Fadumo protested. Her son was a student. He had never left Afgooye. The soldiers took him anyway. They did not provide a warrant. They did not tell her where they were taking him. When she went to the local police station the next day, the commander told her he had no record of her son's arrest. When she went to the NISA office in Mogadishu three days later, she was told to go home and wait.

Fadumo hired a lawyer. The lawyer filed a habeas corpus petition with the Banadir Regional Court in July 2023. The court ordered NISA to produce Ahmed within fourteen days. NISA did not respond. The lawyer filed a second petition in September. Again, no response. In November, Fadumo received a phone call from a man who identified himself as a NISA officer. He told her that Ahmed was alive and being held at a facility in Mogadishu. He said she should stop filing petitions. He hung up.

It took fourteen months before Fadumo saw her son again. In August 2024, Ahmed was transferred to Mogadishu Central Prison. A judge finally heard his case in October. The prosecution presented no evidence. The judge ordered Ahmed's release. He walked out of the courthouse on October 22, 2024. He had lost eighteen kilograms. He would not speak about what had happened to him inside the facility. When his mother asked, he turned his face away.

The Facilities No Lawyer Can Enter

Somalia's counterterrorism detention system operates across at least twelve known facilities. The largest is the NISA headquarters compound in Mogadishu, known formally as the National Intelligence and Security Agency Detention Centre. Detainees and former guards refer to it as "Building Seven." Human Rights Watch estimates that between 600 and 800 people are held there at any given time. No independent monitor has been permitted inside since 2019.

Other facilities are run by regional administrations or foreign-trained units. The Danab Brigade, funded and trained by U.S. Africa Command, operates a detention centre at its base near Baledogle, ninety kilometres northwest of Mogadishu. The Somali Police Force's Special Protection Unit, trained by Turkey, operates another facility in the Hodan district. The African Union Transition Mission in Somalia maintains holding cells at its bases, though ATMIS officially states it does not operate long-term detention facilities and transfers all detainees to Somali authorities within seventy-two hours.

None of these facilities permit legal representation during interrogation. Lawyers attempting to visit clients have been turned away at the gate. In some cases, they have been threatened. Abdirahman Dhaqane, a human rights lawyer with the Mogadishu Legal Aid Centre, has represented seventy-three detainees since 2021. He has been permitted to meet his clients in person in only eleven cases. In each instance, the meeting took place in Mogadishu Central Prison, after his client had already been transferred out of NISA custody.

The Donors Who Look Away

The detention system is funded, in part, by the international community. The United States provides approximately $160 million annually in security assistance to Somalia, including training and equipment for the Danab Brigade and the Somali National Army. The European Union has spent €1.2 billion since 2007 on the African Union mission and Somali security forces through its African Peace Facility and later the European Peace Facility. Turkey has invested more than $400 million in training Somalia's police and intelligence services since 2011, part of Ankara's broader strategy to expand influence in the Horn of Africa.

All of these donors have human rights conditionality clauses in their assistance agreements. All of them require that Somali security forces operate within the rule of law. None of them have suspended funding in response to documented abuses. When confronted with evidence of unlawful detention, donor governments point to training programs on human rights and international humanitarian law. They argue that reform takes time. They note that Al-Shabaab remains a serious threat and that counterterrorism operations must continue.

In January 2024, a delegation from the European Parliament's Subcommittee on Human Rights visited Mogadishu. They requested access to NISA detention facilities. The request was denied. They met with Somali government officials, who assured them that all detainees were treated in accordance with Somali law. They met with civil society organisations, who presented documented cases of torture and unlawful detention. The delegation returned to Brussels. EU security funding to Somalia continued without interruption.

The United States has been more circumspect. In fiscal year 2023, the State Department suspended a small portion of security assistance to the Danab Brigade after reports emerged that the unit had detained civilians during an operation in Hiiraan region without following proper procedures. The suspension lasted six weeks. In October 2023, the funding was restored after NISA assured U.S. officials that new oversight mechanisms had been implemented. Those mechanisms have never been made public. Human Rights Watch has found no evidence that detention practices changed.

The Ones Who Did Not Come Out

Not everyone who enters the detention system leaves it. Somali human rights organisations have compiled lists of individuals who were arrested and never seen again. The lists are incomplete, compiled from family testimony and witness accounts. They do not include people who disappeared in areas controlled by Al-Shabaab, or people who were killed in combat. They include only those who were arrested by government forces or ATMIS troops and subsequently vanished.

As of March 2025, the Somali Human Rights Defenders Network has documented 237 cases of enforced disappearance since 2020. In sixty-four cases, families received unofficial information that their relatives had died in custody. In only nine of those cases were bodies returned. In the remaining cases, families have received no information at all. Requests for information filed with NISA go unanswered. Court orders demanding that authorities produce detainees are ignored.

One case stands out for its brutality and for the sustained international attention it received. In August 2022, Ikran Tahlil Farah, a twenty-five-year-old cybersecu­rity analyst working for NISA, disappeared. Her family reported her missing. NISA initially claimed she had been kidnapped by Al-Shabaab. But witnesses came forward saying they had seen her being taken into a NISA vehicle. Her colleagues said she had been called to a meeting at NISA headquarters and never returned. In September 2022, a military court announced that it had tried and convicted a NISA officer for her murder. The trial was held in secret. No body was ever recovered. The officer was sentenced to death, but the sentence has not been carried out. Ikran's family has never been permitted to see the court file.

What the Law Says

Somalia is a party to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which it ratified in 1990. Article 9 of the covenant states that anyone arrested or detained on a criminal charge must be brought promptly before a judge. Article 14 guarantees the right to a fair trial. Somalia's Provisional Constitution, adopted in 2012, incorporates these protections. Article 25 guarantees the right to liberty and security of person. Article 26 guarantees the right to a fair trial. Article 27 prohibits torture and cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment.

In practice, these protections do not apply to anyone arrested in connection with Al-Shabaab. The National Security Law of 2016 creates a parallel legal framework for terrorism cases. It permits detention without judicial oversight. It permits interrogation without legal counsel. It does not require that detainees be informed of the charges against them. The law was intended to be temporary, valid for five years. In 2021, Parliament extended it indefinitely.

Legal challenges to the law have gone nowhere. In 2022, a coalition of civil society organisations filed a constitutional challenge arguing that the National Security Law violated Articles 25, 26, and 27 of the Provisional Constitution. The Constitutional Court has not yet ruled on the case. Court officials say the delay is due to a backlog of cases. Lawyers involved in the challenge say the court is avoiding a politically sensitive ruling.

Still Waiting

Nuur Abdullahi Mohamed was released in April 2024, twenty-nine months after his arrest. He was never charged. He was never brought before a judge. One morning, guards told him to collect his belongings. He was taken to the gate of Mogadishu Central Prison and released onto the street. No one explained why. He walked home.

His shop had been looted. His family had spent what little savings they had trying to secure his release. His wife had taken the children to her parents' home in Baidoa. When he returned, his neighbours avoided him. In Somalia, arrest is proof enough. It does not matter that he was never convicted. It does not matter that he was never tried. He had been taken. That is what people remember.

He does not talk about what happened inside the detention centres. When asked, he changes the subject. His wife says he does not sleep well. He wakes in the night and sits outside until morning. He has not reopened the shop. He says he is waiting to see what happens next. He does not say what he is waiting for.

Ahmed Hassan Yusuf, the boy from Afgooye, returned to school in November 2024. His teachers say he is quiet. He sits in the back of the classroom. He does not raise his hand. His mother says he has nightmares. She hears him crying at night. When she goes to him, he tells her he is fine. He is not fine.

As of March 2025, the Somali Human Rights Defenders Network estimates that at least 1,900 people remain in detention without charge in facilities controlled by NISA, the Danab Brigade, and regional security forces. The true number is almost certainly higher. Families continue to file petitions. Courts continue to issue orders. The orders are ignored. The petitions go unanswered. The system continues.

On a Thursday afternoon in March 2025, Fadumo Ibrahim sits in the front room of her home in Afgooye. Her son is at school. She has prepared tea. She shows a visitor the documents she has collected: the habeas corpus petitions, the court orders, the letters from lawyers. She keeps them in a plastic folder. She does not know why she keeps them. The papers did not bring her son home. But she keeps them anyway, because they are proof that she tried. Proof that someone, somewhere, wrote down what happened. Proof that it was not supposed to be this way.