SOMALIA- The rebuilding project for the National Library in Somalia has been launched in Mogadishu.

The project which would cost $1m is being financed by Somali government as well as business people, shall be completed in the next six month.

The project director, Zainab Hassan, said that thousands of students currently had no access to books while dozens of displaced families had been sheltering inside the building which has been badly damaged by decades of conflict.

She added that 20,000 books have been donated from the United States and around 60,000 are expected to come from Arab nations.

Ms Hassan said she hopes the library will teach people to love reading.

"The building should restore Somalia's history for future generations," she said.

Al-Shabab militants have been driven out of Somalia's major towns, such as Mogadishu and the port of Kismayo, by a UN-mandated African Union force of some 18,000 soldiers.

Since then, many Somalis living in the diaspora have returned to help in the reconstruction of Mogadishu.

However the militants have carried out intermittent attacks and suicide bombings on the capital in recent months and still control large parts of southern Somalia.