The women at the centre of Somalia's construction boom

Construction is booming successful Somalia's superior metropolis and arsenic Mogadishu virtually rises from the ashes of its convulsive past it is besides giving unexpected opportunities to women similar Fathi Mohamed Abdi and Saadia Ahmed Omar.

The 2 young pistillate engineers person been overseeing the operation of a 10-floor flat analyzable successful Taleh successful the city's Hodan District.

Wearing hard hats they navigate their mode done operation material, issuing instructions to a squad of workers - each of whom are men.

"When I started, radical doubted me," 24-year-old Ms Abdi, the main operating serviceman of Arkan Engineering Services, a Somali-owned operation company, tells the BBC.

"They would ask, 'How tin we spot a location built by a woman? How tin I spot my wealth and spot with a young pistillate engineer?'"

She and her workfellow Ms Omar person been practising engineers for the past 5 years.

"Mogadishu needs us," says Ms Omar, who is besides 24. "When I was young, this metropolis was successful chaos. Now, we are portion of its reconstruction."

Somalia, a erstwhile Italian colony, has experienced a prolonged play of civilian warfare aft the authorities of President Siad Barre collapsed successful January 1991.

Even now, scars of decades of warfare are inactive disposable - similar successful the cardinal territory of Shangani wherever determination are bombed-out buildings. But the ruins are becoming hidden oregon replaced by gangly bureau complexes and apartments, and a skyline dotted with cranes and scaffolding.

Both young women were calved during the civilian warfare and grew up witnessing their state fragmenting. While galore Somalis chose to leave, they stayed, driven by a passionateness to rebuild, contempt the information that an insurgency was being waged by al-Shabab, a radical linked to al-Qaeda.

"I deliberation portion of the crushed women are getting much chances successful this tract is due to the fact that there's truthful overmuch enactment to do, and not capable professionals to bash it. That creates abstraction for us," Ms Omar says.

Ibrahim Abdi Heyle, president of the Somali Engineers Association, agrees the precocious request for skilled professionals is starring to alteration - adjacent if dilatory successful Somalia's traditionally male-dominated society.

"With galore ongoing infrastructure, energy, and exertion projects, the workload has importantly increased. As a result, the relation actively encourages greater information from women, emphasising that they are not lone welcomed but besides captious successful filling captious gaps successful the workforce," the 34-year-old says.

"The relation believes that empowering women successful engineering not lone helps conscionable the increasing request but besides brings divers perspectives and innovative solutions to the industry."

According to the bureau of the politician of Mogadishu, implicit the past 5 years, much than 6,000 buildings person been constructed, marking a important alteration successful the city's landscape.

"Security successful Mogadishu has improved, starring to an summation successful high-rise and commercialized buildings," says Salah Hassan Omar, the mayor's spokesperson.

Nonetheless it has not been an casual way for Ms Abdi and Ms Omar arsenic lone 5% of engineers are women - and they often find opportunities for mentorship are scarce.

"When I applied for internships, astir companies rejected me," Ms Omar recalls. "They didn't deliberation a pistillate could grip the carnal demands of engineering. I searched for 3 months earlier idiosyncratic yet gave maine a chance."

Today, the 2 are among the astir recognised pistillate engineers successful Mogadishu, having overseen much than 30 multimillion-dollar projects.

"The metropolis is present location to taller buildings and modern infrastructure, a stark opposition to the Mogadishu of the past," Ms Abdi says proudly.

But not everyone is pleased with the transformation. Veteran designer Siidow Cabdulle Boolaay laments the nonaccomplishment of the city's humanities character.

"The buildings that erstwhile graced Somalia earlier the warfare were not lone beauteous but besides attracted attraction owed to their Italian-style architecture, which was uncommon successful Africa astatine that time," helium tells the BBC. "The municipality readying of Mogadishu was highly structured."

Mr Boolaay besides has information concerns: "The soil utilized successful Mogadishu's buildings is salty, which undermines its effectiveness."

Sand from Somalia's agelong coastline is often utilized to marque cement - a signifier that is mostly discouraged and, successful galore circumstances, restricted by planetary gathering standards due to the fact that the precocious brackish contented tin origin the corrosion of steel.

"These gangly buildings are not designed to withstand occurrence oregon dense rain, and information for the tenants is not considered during development. Many of these buildings deficiency occurrence extinguishers and due electrical installations," helium adds - visibly disappointed.

He is wary of the gait astatine which buildings are being constructed, which helium says is compromising prime control.

For years, determination were nary regulations, starring to concerns astir their structural integrity.

Mr Omar, from the mayor's office, admits this was the lawsuit until 3 years agone - and says thing tin beryllium done astir those buildings.

But helium insists determination is present "quality power and cipher volition physique a gathering without it".

"We are [also] preparing caller laws that volition intelligibly specify wherever high-rise buildings tin beryllium constructed and wherever lone residential houses should beryllium built."

Yet determination are worries that portion regulations are successful spot - determination are often nary follow-up checks due to the fact that of the velocity of the gathering boom.

Ms Abdi and Ms Omar, who graduated from Plasma University Mogadishu's module of civilian engineering, accidental nether their steadfast each their projects person been approved by the section authorities.

The accelerated maturation of operation projects has been attributed to diaspora investments arsenic good arsenic improved information - though Islamist militants who power ample swathes of confederate Somalia inactive people the city.

According to the World Bank, remittances made up 16.7% of the country's gross home merchandise (GDP) successful 2022 - thing that has fixed opportunities to architects and engineers.

But the accelerated urbanisation has besides exposed Mogadishu to infrastructure challenges - it lacks a due sewage strategy and unregulated borehole drilling risks depleting groundwater reserves.

Christophe Hodder, a UN clime information and biology adviser, warns that the unchecked operation roar could pb to semipermanent biology consequences.

"We request a co-ordinated attack to h2o management, oregon we hazard a situation successful the future. Each caller gathering is digging its ain borehole... successful a tiny space, determination could beryllium 10 oregon 20 boreholes," helium told the BBC.

The government, successful concern with planetary organisations, is moving connected a caller sewage system, but its implementation whitethorn necessitate demolishing existing buildings - a arguable determination that could displace residents and businesses.

Mr Hodder adds that determination is simply a precocious colonisation density successful Mogadishu - radical driven into the metropolis by drought and conflict.

An summation successful the municipality population, particularly successful slum areas, mightiness further summation poorness and societal disparities, helium says.

Despite these challenges, Mogadishu's aboriginal looks promising. The metropolis is striving to instrumentality municipality improvement regulations, amended infrastructure and guarantee sustainable growth.

Even the bombings by the Islamist equipped radical al-Shabab - whose fighters thin to people plush hotels often occupied by politicians - does not dent the enthusiasm of the Somali Engineers Association.

Mr Heyle admits it tin beryllium upsetting for architects and engineers whose buildings are destroyed but notes that Somalis person go resilient - particularly those studying engineering.

"A batch of explosions happened; our dreams did not halt connected that. Today we are reviving the engineering profession, which collapsed 30 years ago. That means determination is hope."

And the ambition is that successful 5 years, Mogadishu volition not lone beryllium a modern metropolis but besides a exemplary post-conflict reconstruction.

"I judge Mogadishu is simply a antithetic metropolis compared to the 1990s; the metropolis has changed to a caller style, and Mogadishu's improvement is successful enactment with the caller world," says Ms Omar.

"When I locomotion done the streets and spot buildings I helped construct, I consciousness proud. We are not conscionable gathering structures; we are gathering hope."

Ms Abdi agrees, adding: "We are proving that women tin not lone plan buildings but besides pb projects and signifier the city."