[3] Initially, it was only practiced by the few Italian immigrants in Mogadishu and the Shebelle River farmer areas, thanks to some missionaries of the Trinitarian Fathers.
[4] In 1895, the first 45 Bantu slaves were freed by the Italian colonial authorities under the administration of the chartered Catholic company Filonardi.
Requiring labor to work these plantations, the Italian authorities attempted to recruit Bantu ex-slaves, singling out the latter community for this purpose.
[8] Slavery in southern Somalia lasted until early into the 20th century, when it was finally abolished by the Italian authorities in accordance with the Belgium protocol and with the Diocese of Mogadishu.
The Bishop of Mogadishu, Franco Filippini, declared in 1940 that there were about 40,000 Somali Catholics due to the work of missionaries in the rural regions of Juba and Shebelle, but WWII damaged them irreversibly.