Bakaara Market

Proprietors sell daily essentials, including maize, sorghum, beans, peanuts, sesame, wheat and rice, petrol and medicine.

Two of the five U.S. Army Black Hawk helicopters, involved in the battle, were downed in the vicinity of the market area which led to a fierce firefight that lasted until the evening of 4 October 1993.

[citation needed] In February 2001, an influx of counterfeit currency led to the shutting of the market for a time.

According to a report to the UN Security Council: On the night of 10 April [2004], a serious fire in the main Bakaara market in Mogadishu resulted in at least eight people killed and more than 30 wounded.

[7] On 15 October 2009, Al-Shabab insurgents shelled the Bakara Market with mortars, killing 20 people and wounding 58 others.

[8] On 12 May 2011 the African Union Mission to Somalia and the Transitional Federal Government launched an offensive towards the market to clear out Al-Shabaab.

[citation needed] In November 2012, the head of Bakara’s business community, businessman Ahmed Nure Awdiini, was shot dead outside his office in Mogadishu.

The checkpoints for the market were removed in June 2005 as part of the Green Leaf for Democracy (GLED) initiative of a "Global Week against Small Arms.