The Bajuni Islands, Bajun Islands,[1] or Baajun Islands are an archipelago in the Indian Ocean, on the southern coast of Somalia, from Kismayu to Ras Kiyamboni (not to be confused with Ras Kamboni). They lie at the northern end of a string of reefs that continues south to Zanzibar and Pemba.
Administratively, the islands are within the Jubbada Hoose region of Somalia.
There are six main islands: Chandra, Chovaye (also spelled Tovai;[1] ), Chula (also spelled Tula;[1] ), Koyama (also spelled Kwayama;[1] ), Darakasi and Ngumi. Chula with the village of Ndowa is the only island with a significant population.
The biggest island of the archipelago is Coiama or Koyama with two separate villages mainly Koyama and Koyamani. Koyama is rich in historic ruins and monuments like pillar tombs.
All Bajuni inhabitants of Koyama island belong to Nowfali (bajuni subclan).
Other islands of minor importance are: Kandha Iwu, Fuma, Ilisi and the island of Kisimayu (actual Kisimayu harbor) attached to the coast in 1961 during the construction of Kismayu Port.
The islands, as well as all of the extreme southern part of today's Somalia were, part of British East Africa prior to World War I, and were transferred to Italy after the war.[1] According to C. Wightwick Haywood, then a British official in Kismayu, who visited the islands in 1913, the only inhabited islands in the chain were Tovai (i.e., Chovaye - the biggest island in the chain) and the nearby Tula (i.e. Chula). Each of these two islands were no more than 3 miles long and a mile across. Maize, millet, sweet potatoes and coconuts were grown. The residents of the islands, whom Haywood thought to be of Arab and/or Persian descent, built dhows, which the British official considered "excellent sea boats".[1]
On his 1913 trip, Haywood saw ruins of what he described as a "fair-sized town" on the Tovai (Chovaye) Island. He was impressed by stone carvings, and thought that the ruins had been left by people "of a superior culture" to the residents of his day. He mentioned that somewhat similar stone scrollwork could also be seen on houses in the Lamu Islands, in what's today Kenya.[1]