- published: 29 Nov 2014
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Barawa or Brava (Somali: Baraawe, Arabic: مدينة ﺑﺮﺍﻭة) is a port town on the south-eastern coast of Somalia. The traditional inhabitants are the Tunni Somalis and the Bravanese people, who speak Bravanese, a Swahili dialect.
In the 16th century, Barawa, which was then part of the Ajuuraan Empire, was sacked by the Portuguese during the Battle of Barawa but quickly recovered from the attack. In 1840, soldiers of the Bardheere Jama'a took the city under siege while attempting to discover a more direct sea route, and inflicted much damage. The town's inhabitants pleaded with Sultan Yusuf Mahamud Ibrahim of the Gobroon Dynasty for protection, with the Sultan's troops then invading Bardera and burned the city to the ground. Eventually, in 1889, Barawa was ceded to the control of the Italians when the Sultan of Zanzibar was forced to agree to the annexation of all the Banadir ports to the Italian Company already established in the Horn of Africa. The city, however, like the rest of the Benadir coast, was not under Zanzibari control but under Gobroon and Bimal rule, therefore making the Italian-Zanzibar agreement null and void. The Italians faced stiff resistance from many parts of the Benadir coast, and its inland regions and the slave trade of the Somali merchants would remain unchallenged for years to come.