Economy, Transportation and Communications

Somalia has no railroads; of its 22,100 km (13,732 mi) of roads, about 25 percent are paved or gravel. Mogadishu is the leading port. A government-owned airline provides international service. Until the early 1990s, two government-owned radio stations broadcast in Arabic, English, Italian, Somali, and several other languages, but the collapse of Somalia’s infrastructure because of the civil war has caused much of the country’s telecommunications to be disrupted. Three of the competing factions provide some broadcasting.