Villaggio Duca degli Abruzzi

The Duca degli Abruzzi, a senior member of the Italian Royal Family, created the village in 1920 and raised funds for a number of development projects in this agricultural place, including roads, dams, schools, hospitals, a church and a mosque.

The Mogadishu-Villabruzzi Railway was initially built for the surrounding area of Mogadishu (Mogadiscio in Italian), after World War I in 1914.

The original proposal was for the railway to go on from Villabruzzi to the Somali border with Ethiopia and into the Ogaden, but the Second Italo-Abyssinian War in 1936 stopped further construction.

The area around the "Villaggio Duca degli Abruzzi" was the most agriculturally developed of Somalia before World War II and had some food industries.

In 1940, Villabruzzi had a population of 12,000, of whom nearly 3,000 were Italian Somalis, and enjoyed a notable level of development as a small manufacturing area.