New series · Every Monday · Started 2 November 2026
Fifteen attacks on prison gates, cells and convoys, from Jowhar in 2009 to Godka Jilacow in 2025: what Al-Shabaab did, the guards and soldiers it killed, and what the government, the prison authorities and the intelligence agency failed to do. Each part cites the ones before it. Part 2 is out now.
Part 3 of 15: Monday 16 November 2026
Annual Assessment 2026 · Coming soon
Our yearly assessment of Mogadishu's prisons and detention facilities: the deaths, the cases, the conditions and what must change, with the data behind every figure.
Release: 15 December 2026
Coming next · 1969–1991
After the prison attacks series, a new series on what Siad Barre's government did to the people it held: opposition figures, journalists, civil society organisations, imams and sheikhs, held without trial in the Hole and in prisons across the country, and what became of them. Each piece set against what is done in Somalia's prisons today. The date will be announced here.
Independent · Mogadishu · Since 2019
OPR investigates conditions in Somalia's prisons and detention facilities, interviews the people held in them, and publishes what it finds. It also follows Somalis detained or imprisoned abroad — from Guantánamo to Libya to the Gulf. Every report is sourced, dated, and kept online.
Have you been detained in Somalia, or do you know someone who has? Your testimony becomes part of the permanent record.
On the night of 2 December 2012, about twenty detainees, mainly suspected Al-Shabaab fighters, walked out of a prison in government-held Baidoa. Officials said they went through the front gate. Nobody has said who opened it.
On the International Day of Political Prisoners, a count of jailed journalists and opposition leaders in Africa and the world’s most closed states shows one pattern: no trial, a trial the defendant cannot attend, or a sentence from a court that answers to the…
Aliya and Najib came to Sweden to join their refugee mother ten years ago. On 27 October, aged 22, they were put on a chartered plane to Mogadishu, four weeks after Sweden’s new rules for young adults took effect.
Fourteen countries, country by country: Guantánamo to Mogadishu in chains; three hundred in Libyan prisons; three hundred rounded up in Istanbul; forty-four life sentences in Mumbai; nineteen beheaded in Saudi Arabia.
Open the dossier →The only country in sub-Saharan Africa that executed anyone in 2023 — at least fifty-five, by firing squad, most after military trials; some of them children; some shot the day they were sentenced.
Open the register →Seventeen attacks and escapes since 2009, with a full OPR piece on each, one every Monday: car bombs at Godka Jilacow, four hundred freed from Bosaso, towns taken and their jails opened, armed revolts in Mogadishu Central Prison. The dead, the escaped, and the inquiries never published.
Open the register →One hundred and forty-eight journalists arrested or arbitrarily detained in 2025, by the Somali Journalists Syndicate's count, and nearly nine in ten never taken to court. Who was held, by whom, why, and where each case stands today.
Open the register →Somalis detained abroad, by country: United States · Libya · Turkey · Yemen · Kenya · Ethiopia · Piracy prosecutions and transfers · India · Europe · United Kingdom · The Gulf and the Middle East · Egypt and Sudan · Uganda, Tanzania and South Africa · Djibouti
Six years of detention practice under two administrations: what the law says, what the record shows, and where reform announcements have not reached the cells.
A psychiatric study of one Somaliland prison, UN inspections of federal ones, and OPR’s own field research point to the same failure: people who need care are being locked up instead.
In Somalia’s fractured justice system, being from a minority community is itself a risk factor for wrongful arrest, coerced confession, and conviction.
OPR interviewed roughly eight in ten people held in Mogadishu Central Prison and asked where they were from. Nearly a quarter come from Southwest State. Every Federal Member State, Somaliland and Benadir is represented.
Share of the prison population by region of origin. Data: OPR interviews, September 2023. An updated survey is in preparation.
Read the full data report →
Boundaries approximate. Sool, Sanaag and Cayn are disputed between Somaliland and Puntland; Mudug is divided between Puntland and Galmudug.
OPR's 2025 assessment of Mogadishu's prisons and detention facilities: conditions, gender-based violence and access to justice.
OPR's annual assessment of Mogadishu's prisons and detention facilities for 2024: the legal framework, conditions of detention, gender-based violence, the treatment of children and minorities, and access to justice…
A comprehensive policy analysis of Somalia’s 1962 Penal Code, the custodial crisis, and the accountability gap — and the case for urgent legislative reform addressed to the Federal Parliament and Somalia’s international…
Somalia’s prison system remains one of the least examined yet most critical components of the country’s justice and security sector.
Your time in detention, or that of someone who is no longer alive. In Somali or English, written or by WhatsApp voice note. Published only with your consent.
Tell OPR →
Investigations, testimony, analysis. Women, people with disabilities, Somalis detained abroad, writers from across Africa: standing calls are open.
Pitch a piece →
Free. Every report, investigation and statement by email as it is published, and invitations to OPR's events.
Join →Have a concern, a case, information, or a question? Write to us. Messages go to [email protected] and are read by the Chairperson. If you need to stay anonymous, leave the email blank and say so.
Direct line to the editor: [email protected] · WhatsApp +252 61 977 5580
01 / 03 The Detained & The Disappeared · International Day to End Impunity for Crimes Against Journalists · 2 November
Across Somalia, courageous journalists are being arbitrarily pulled from the streets, thrown into unlawful state detention, or vanished into the shadows entirely. We track and document arrests, and we refuse to let the world forget the names of those silenced for exposing institutional corruption.
See who is being held
02 / 03 The Haunted Newsroom · International Day to End Impunity for Crimes Against Journalists · 2 November
Harassment doesn’t just happen in public view—it lives in the relentless threats, online abuse, and late-night warnings that terrorize media houses. When reporters are too terrified to report freely, corruption thrives without a witness. We are building the shields to help them stand tall.
Protect the Press
03 / 03 The Collective Shield · International Day to End Impunity for Crimes Against Journalists · 2 November
Our organization stands as an unyielding front line for Somalia's vulnerable media community. Through aggressive monitoring, legal advocacy, and systemic penal reform, we fight to dismantle the culture of absolute impunity and guarantee that every voice can report safely and without fear.
Join Our FightPhotos: AMISOM Photo / Ilyas Ahmed and Mokhtar Mohamed, public domain (CC0), via Wikimedia Commons.