Somalia races to save Radio Mogadishu’s fading archive

What the report says

Al Jazeera reports that archivists at Radio Mogadishu are trying to digitise a vast collection of reel-to-reel recordings that document decades of Somali public life. The archive, held at Somalia’s main public radio station in Mogadishu, includes news bulletins, speeches, music, dramas and other broadcasts, with some material dating to the early 1950s. Archivist Abdiqadir Geedi Robleh is part of a small team transferring tapes to computers before the magnetic reels become unusable.

According to officials cited by Al Jazeera, the collection contains about 45,000 tapes and reels, amounting to an estimated 400,000 hours of recordings. A UNESCO-linked assessment in April found that more than 85 percent of the archive remains playable, while about one in 10 items has deteriorated and more than 5 percent has been destroyed or badly damaged. Station director Abdi Jeite said the digitisation effort began around 2012 but has been slowed by limited resources, with roughly 10 percent converted so far.

The preservation push has gained momentum this year. In June, Somalia’s information ministry and UNESCO’s regional office for Eastern Africa held a workshop in Mogadishu with archivists, part of a longer-term effort that could lead to the collection being considered for UNESCO’s Memory of the World programme. The archive’s value is heightened because many recordings may not exist elsewhere.

Radio Mogadishu, founded in 1951 during the Italian colonial period, became Somalia’s leading public broadcaster and a major cultural platform. Historians and former staff cited by Al Jazeera describe it as central to Somali music, poetry, journalism and national memory, while also noting its role under Siad Barre’s state ideology.