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20-715: The city of Essina is believed to have been the predecessor state of Merca. It used to be an ancient Proto-Somali emporium city-state. It is mentioned in the Periplus of the Erythraean Sea , a Greek travel document dating from the first century AD, as one of a series of commercial ports on the Somali littoral. According to the Periplus , maritime trade already connected peoples in the Merca area with other communities along

40-697: A jetty -class seaport , the Port of Merca . The nearest airport to the city is the K50 Airport in the Lower Shebelle province. Otherwise, most people take the Aden Adde Airport in Mogadishu and then take an hour and 30 minute bus ride to Merca Essina Essina ( Ancient Greek : Εσσίνα ) was an ancient emporium located on the southeastern coast of present-day Somalia in

60-464: A Somali soldier, several militants, and four civilians died. On 27 July 2022, an Al-Shabaab suicide bomber killed mayor Abdullahi Ali Ahmed Waafow and twenty other people while Waafow was giving a speech. According to the UNDP in 2005, Merca had a population of around 250,000inhabitants. it is primarily inhabited by Biimaal Clan with there being a recognizable amount of other Somali tribes. Merca has

80-547: A general lack of excavations in the area, the old city's exact geographical location is unknown. Port of Merca The Port of Merca ( Somali : Dekada Marka , Italian : Porto di Merca ) also known as Merca Port , is the official seaport of Merca , situated in southeastern Somalia . It is classified as a jetty class port. It has a harbour as well as a pier which juts into the Somali Sea. Originally -and for many centuries- there were only fishing activities in

100-538: A specific criterion, reach their destination in the best possible way. Then another stop in Chisimaio, an important coastal emporium and crossroads of many communication routes that led to the large plantations in the interior of the country. Here the loading of the ship was completed and the first passengers of the return journey were embarked (in Chisimaio & Merca), to which would be added those who were waiting to board in Mogadishu . The banana commerce continued in

120-618: Is compared to the war of the Mad Mullah in northern Somalia. Named after the Bimal clan since they were the major element in the resistance. For more about Bimal or Merca revolt see: In the 1930s a group of Italian Somalis established residency in Merca. The Port of Merca was the oldest port in Italian Somalia and was nicknamed the "port of bananas" due to its status as a key exporter of bananas from Somalia to Europe . In

140-703: The Abgaal , formed a following or "tribe" which invaded the territory of Merca and expelled the Ajuran clan. The El Amir ruled for thirty-four years until the Biimaal expelled them and definitively occupied Merca. One of the most powerful sultanates to have emerged from Southern Somalia called the Geledi Sultanate centered in Afgooye in the late 17th century. The Sultanate of Geledi tried to attack and destroy

160-586: The Horn of Africa . Having risen to prominence in the 2nd century CE, Essina was mentioned in Ptolemy 's Geographia . Several modern scholars have positioned the ancient harbour in the vicinity of the early medieval cities of Merca and Barawa in modern-day southern Somalia based on Ptolemy's work. Alternatively, it has been suggested that Essina was buried somewhere along the Benadir coast. However, due to

180-755: The Bimaal clan many times to try and capture the coastal city of Merca. But the Bimal of Merca managed to defeat the Geledi Sultanate 2 times. In 1843 Yusuf Mahamud , the Sultan of Geledi, vowed to destroy the Bimaal once and for all and mobilizes the Geledi army. In 1848 the sultan of the Geledi, Yusuf Mahamud was killed at Adaddey Suleyman, a village near Merca, in a battle between the Bimaal and Geledi Sultanates. His son Sultan Ahmed Yusuf tried to seek revenge but

200-646: The Middle Ages, the area was one of several prominent administrative centers of the Ajuran Sultanate . The polity formed one of the largest kingdoms in the Horn region. Various pillar tombs exist in the region, which local tradition holds were built in the 15th century when the Sultanate's naa'ibs governed the district. According to Ibn Sa'id in the thirteenth century described nearby Merca as one of

220-510: The Somali Sea coast. According to the 12th-century author Al-Idrisi the Hawiye occupied the coastal areas between Ras Hafun and Merca, as well as the lower basin of the lower Shabelle river. Al-Idrisi's mention of the Hawiye is the first documentary reference to a specific Somali group in the Horn. Later Arab writers also make references to the Hawiye clan in connection with both Merca and

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240-518: The beach of the small coastal village now called Merca. The port was a small fishing inlet in the early 1900s, but in the 1920s the Italian governor De Vecchi created a "real' port installation, called officially in Italian Porto di Merca , with a dock for ships for Italian Somalia exports of bananas. In the late 1920s and mainly in the 1930s there was a colony of Italian settlers in

260-417: The capital and the first port for loading bananas. Not even here there was a real port and the boarding took place with the use of maone and the strength of the arms of a hundred Somalis who in a relatively short time and under the supervision of the crew carried out an operation that it was less simple than one might imagine, given the precautions that had to be taken to ensure that the bananas, once stowed with

280-535: The city of Merca there was a huge economic development in the 1930s, due mainly to the growing commerce of the port of Merca connected by small railway to the farm area of Genale . Merca was abandoned by government forces and captured by Al-Shabaab in February 2016. It was recaptured by the Somali National Army along with African Union troops, a few days later. A small battle was fought in which

300-497: The farm area of Genale and Villabruzzi . During WWII some damages were done by the British to Merca and the port. The "Giuliana Fassio" and other ships (from Italy to Somalia) mainly transported mechanical equipment, furniture, household appliances such as refrigerators and the first washing machines, cars and wine. After the landing of these products in Mogadishu, they continued on to Merca, an important port of call south of

320-410: The first years after the war, mainly during the decade (1950-1960) of Italian Trusteeship of Somalia. The port had a minor activity in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s. The Port of Merca was destroyed during the civil war in the 1990s, with all the remaining facilities for exporting bananas. The port of Merca (and the city) was abandoned by government forces and captured by Al-Shabaab in February 2016. It

340-646: The lower Shabelle valley. Ibn Sa'id (1214–74), for instance, considered Merca to be the capital of the Hawiye, who lived in fifty villages on the bank of a river which he called the Nile of Mogadishu , a clear reference to the Shabelle river. Yaqut al-Hamawi , another thirteen-century Arab geographer also mentions Merca, which he says belonged to the Black Berbers considered ancestors of modern Somalis . During

360-440: The port-city of Merca , that was greatly improved. The Port of Merca was the second in Italian Somalia and was nicknamed "port of bananas" (porto bananiero) because from there was exported in those years the huge production of Somali bananas toward Italy and Europe . In the city of Merca there was a huge economical development in the 1930s, due mainly to the growing commerce of the port of Merca connected by small railway to

380-606: The three most important cities on the East African coast along with Mogadishu and Barawa all serving as the commercial and Islamic centers for the Indian Ocean . Following the decline of Ajuran Sultanate . In the vicinity of Merca, a mysterious group known as the El Amir made its appearance between 1650 and 1700. According to an account collected by Guillain in 1847, a leader known as Amir, believed to originate from

400-503: Was also killed in 1878 at Agaaran, near Marka by the Bimal. This caused a steady decline in the Geledi Sultanate. The Bimal revolt , Bimal resistance , or Banadir resistance was a guerrilla war against the Italian Somaliland in southern Somalia . It was fought from the years 1896 to 1926 and largely concentrated in the Lower Shebelle , Banadir , and Middle Shebelle . The war was centered around Merka and Danane. It

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