Awdhegle

Awdhegle Wildlife Reserve is listed (as "Awdhegle-G") among the nine wildlife reserves of Somalia in the UN List of Protected Areas, which records it as designated but gives no year of designation, no area and no IUCN category.^[1] The nearby district of Awdheegle is an agricultural district in the Lower Shabelle region, west of Mogadishu on the Shebelle River, at about 01 58 N, 044 50 E; its population was about 119,000 in 2020.^[2]

The Nile crocodile is described as very common in southern Somalia.^[3]

The Shebelle River, on which the district lies, rises in the Ethiopian Highlands.^[4]

Below Mogadishu the Shebelle becomes seasonal and typically dries up near the mouth of the Jubba River, though in heavy rain it can reach the ocean via the Jubba. The Shebelle is subject to frequent flash floods: a flood in October 1999 in Ethiopia's Kelafo and Mustahil districts left about 70,000 people in need of assistance, and some locals considered the April 2005 flood the worst in 40 years.^[4]

The surrounding Awdheegle District is predominantly inhabited by the Begedi clan subdivision of the Digil family.^[2]

The UN List of Protected Areas records no year of designation for the reserve.^[1] Eleven wildlife areas have been declared in Somalia since the 1970s, but only two were thought to be functional, and no formal protection has been offered to any of them since the early 1990s.^[5]

The district lies west of Mogadishu on the Shebelle River.^[2]

Nature Somalia states that no protected areas remained functional after the 1991 collapse of the central government.^[6]