Italian Somalis

Italian Somalis
Italo-Somali

Postcard of Downtown Mogadishu in 1936. At the centre is the Catholic Cathedral, similar to that of Cefalù in Sicily and now destroyed. Near the Cathedral, the Arch monument is to commemorate King Umberto I of Italy.
Total population
(50,000 (Italian Somaliland, 1940 5% of the population))
Regions with significant populations
Mogadishu
Languages
Italian, Somali, Arabic
Religion
Roman Catholicism, Islam
Related ethnic groups
other Italians, Somalis, Arabs, Italian Eritreans

Italian Somalis (Italian: Italo-Somali) are Somali descendants from Italian colonists, as well as long-term Italian residents in Somalia.

In 1892, the Italian explorer Luigi Robecchi Bricchetti for the first time labeled as Somalia the region in the Horn of Africa referred to as Banaadir. The area was at the time under the joint control of the Somali Geledi Sultanate (who, also holding sway over the Shebelle region in the interior, was at the height of its power) and the Omani Sultan of Zanzibar.

In April 1905, the Italian government acquired control (from a private Italian company called SACI) of this coastal area around Mogadishu, and created the colony of Italian Somaliland.

From the outset, the Italians signed protectorate agreements with the local Somali authorities. In doing this, the Kingdom of Italy was spared bloody rebellions like those launched by the Dervish leader Mohammed Abdullah Hassan (the so-called "Mad Mullah") over a period of twenty-one years against the British colonial authorities in northern Somalia, an area then referred to as British Somaliland.

In 1908, the borders with Ethiopia in the upper river Shebelle River (Uebi-Scebeli in Italian) were defined, and after World War I, the area of Oltregiuba ("Beyond Juba") was ceded by Britain and annexed to Italian Somaliland.