Tribunal decisions

The decision

IN THE UPPER TRIBUNAL
IMMIGRATION AND ASYLUM CHAMBER
Case No: UI-2025-000716
First-tier Tribunal No: PA/59909/2023
IA/00799/2024

THE IMMIGRATION ACTS

Decision & Reasons Issued:
On 29th December 2025

Before

UPPER TRIBUNAL JUDGE LANE

Between

MMI
(ANONYMITY ORDER MADE)
Appellant
and

Secretary of State for the Home Department
Respondent

Representation:

For the Appellant: Mr Winter
For the Respondent: Mr Mullen, Senior Presenting Officer

Heard at Edinburgh on 7 October 2025

DECISION AND REASONS
1. The appellant is a male citizen of Somalia born 1988 who claims to be a member of the Ajuuraan clan. He claimed asylum on the basis of events which he claimed had occurred in his home area of Somalia to which he asserts he cannot safely return. For the reasons I shall give below, I shall not address in detail the appellant’s claimed risk in his home area, the judge’s findings of fact on the appellant’s account of past events in that home area or any arguable error of law in that part of the judge’s decision. I shall instead deal with the ability of the appellant to relocate to Mogadishu.
2. By a decision dated 21 May 2025, Upper Tribunal Judge Bruce set aside the First-tier Tribunal’s decision and directed a resumed hearing in the Upper Tribunal at which the decision should be remade. At [17] , Upper Tribunal Judge Bruce wrote:
Mr Halliday further asks that I remit the matter to the First-tier Tribunal. I do not consider that necessary or appropriate. The errors in the decision below did not strike at the overall fairness of the decision: as I note above, at least some of the conclusions of the Tribunal are capable of preservation. Nor do I accept that there is extensive fact finding required here. The final decision requires analysis of only two matters:
i) Is the Appellant at a real risk of harm in Jowhar/ outside of Mogadishu, either arising from Habibo's clan or from other actors of persecution such as Al-Shabaab;
ii) If so, can he reasonably be expected to live in Mogadishu, having regard to the factor identified in OA and his personal characteristics?
3. At the resumed hearing at Edinburgh on 7 October 2025, Mr Mullen, for the Secretary of State, told me that the respondent accepted that the appellant, having no obvious affiliation through his clan or otherwise with local militia, would face an Article 3 ECHR risk should he attempt to travel south from Mogadishu to his home area. Given that acknowledgement of risk in the home area, Mr Mullen said that his submissions would concern only the appellant’s ability to relocate to and live in Mogadishu.
4. Mr Mullen submitted that Upper Tribunal Judge Mandalia, giving directions on an application to adjourn a previous resumed hearing, had cast doubt on the qualifications and ability of the appellant’s expert’s witness. That expert witness (Ardinet Adinew Tesfaye) had, Mr Mullen submitted, drawn his evidence not from any in depth research of understanding of conditions in Somalia but from open source documents. The appellant might initially encounter difficulties living in Mogadishu but would, being a relatively young, fit man with a trade (hairdressing), be able to establish himself in the city in due course.
5. In his submissions, Mr Winter, for the appellant, stressed that the appellant had relied on two reports by different experts. The first report (Omer Ahmed) had not been the subject of any judicial criticism. Indeed, it had not been referred to at all by the First-tier Tribunal in its analysis of internal flight. The appellant did not obviously have any support network of friends and relations in Mogadishu and had been living in the United Kingdom for over 17 years.
6. I have studied all the relevant documents carefully. The appellant relies on two expert country reports. In his lengthy analysis, the expert Mr Omar concluded: ‘Due to the range of vulnerabilities identified herein, and given the claimant’s profile, and the paucity of immediate any familial connection or support, internal relocation to, or from, Mogadishu or any other part of Somalia, would in my opinion not be viable [105]’.
7. I have had regard also for the country guidance case of OA (Somalia) Somalia CG [2022] UKUT 33 (IAC). In the context of that case, I find that the appellant’s primary characteristics are that (i) he has lived in the United Kingdom for 17 years; (ii) he has a trade (he is a barber); (iii) he claims that his family are living in a refugee camp in Yemen and cannot send money to him Somalia; (iv) he has no family in Mogadishu; indeed, he has no clan connections in the Mogadishu and states that his only relative remaining in Somalia is his teenage daughter in Jowhar; (v) he will receive a payment from the United Kingdom government under the Facilitated Returns Scheme [FRS] to assist his return to Somalia but he is likely to have a low income as a barber and little immediate prospect of increasing it.
8. Headnotes [13] and [14] of OA read:
If there are particular features of an individual returnee's circumstances or characteristics that mean that there are substantial grounds to conclude that there will be a real risk that, notwithstanding the availability of the Facilitated Returns Scheme and the other means available to a returnee of establishing themselves in Mogadishu, residence in an IDP camp or informal settlement will be reasonably likely, a careful consideration of all the circumstances will be required in order to determine whether their return will entail a real risk of Article 3 being breached. Such cases are likely to be rare, in light of the evidence that very few, if any, returning members of the diaspora are forced to resort to IDP camps
It will only be those with no clan or family support who will not be in receipt of remittances from abroad and who have no real prospect of securing access to a livelihood on return who will face the prospect of living in circumstances falling below that which would be reasonable for internal relocation purposes [my emphasis]
9. In my opinion, applying the guidance of OA, I find that the appellant will not be a real risk of suffering treatment contrary to Article 3 ECHR on return to Somalia. I accept that he has no prospect of ongoing support in the immediate future from family members and that he has no clan ties in Mogadishu. On the other hand, I do not accept that the appellant has ‘vulnerabilities’ as indicated by Mr Omar; he is mentally and physically healthy and has a trade (‘other means available to a returnee of establishing themselves in Mogadishu’) and will have sufficient funds to establish himself in the initial months in a citizen where the security situation is relatively stable. Very significantly, I find that he is unlikely to find himself in an IDP camp (‘very few, if any, returning members of the diaspora are forced to resort to IDP camps.’). He has no ‘particular features [or] circumstances or characteristics’ which might expose him to risk; his circumstances are wholly unexceptional. Whilst he may not have ‘… clan or family support [and] … will not be in receipt of remittances from abroad’ only those who in addition do ‘[not] have the other means available to a returnee of establishing themselves in Mogadishu’ are likely to be at real risk; as I have found, the appellant does not fall into that category. I find that, whilst returning will be difficult for him after a long period living in the United Kingdom, he will be able to establish himself over time in Mogadishu and that he will not suffer ill treatment before he can so.
10. In the circumstances I dismiss his appeal against the decision of the Secretary of State to refuse his claim for international protection.

Notice of Decision
I have remade the decision. The appellant’s appeal against the decision of the Secretary of State to refuse his claim for international protection is dismissed.

C. N. Lane

Judge of the Upper Tribunal
Immigration and Asylum Chamber

Dated: 12 November 2025