1990s. 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 in an irreversibly way most of the catholic missions in Italian Somalia. Most were somali Bantu, but some thousands were illegitimate sons of Italian soldiers and somali girls (who received Italian citizenship when baptized). In the 1950s Indro Montanelli wrote on Il Borghese that Italian Mogadishu in 1942 after the arrival of the British was an African capital where most of inhabitants were Catholics: he indicated that of the 90,000 inhabitants more than 40,000 were Italians, while inside the 50,000 Somalis there were nearly 7,000 Catholics (including the many illegitimate sons of Italian soldiers and Somali native girls who were baptized in order to get Italian identification). From this he concluded that nearly 3 out of 5 Mogadiscio inhabitants were Catholics. Since the end of the colonial period and the departure of the Italians, Catholicism has experienced a nearly complete disappearance in Somalia. The Diocese of Mogadishu estimated that there were only 100 Catholics in Somalia in 2004, down from 8,500 practitioners in 1950 during the height of the colonial period. See also Catholic Church in Somaliland Christianity in Somalia Italian Somalis Roman Catholic Diocese of Mogadiscio Notes Bibliography Ceci, Lucia. Il Vessillo e la Croce - Colonialismo, missioni cattoliche e islam in Somalia (1903-1924)Carocci editore. Roma, 2006 () Gresleri, G. Mogadiscio ed il Paese dei Somali: una identita negata. Marsilio editori. Venezia, 1993 Tripodi, Paolo. The Colonial Legacy in Somalia. St. Martin's Press. New York, 1999. External links Catholic Mission Somalia Blog Kitaab Tukasho: Somali Catholic Prayer Book Somalia Somalia