Somalia races to save Radio Mogadishu’s fading archive

Mogadishu, Somalia – Thousands of reel-to-reel tapes sit in an air-conditioned room in the archive of Somalia’s public radio, Radio Mogadishu, stacked on steel shelves and lined up like old manuscripts beneath a thick layer of dust.

Each reel contains a small fragment of Somalia’s 20th-century history, from news bulletins to speeches, music and voices that were once beamed out a...