In March 1941 Mogadiscio was occupied by the British Army. Because of security reasons, nearly all the Italians of Somalia moved to live in Mogadiscio, so consequently in 1942 it was a city where the Italians were nearly half the population and where the Catholicism was the religion of nearly 60% of the inhabitants. According to reports of the British authorities, Mogadiscio in 1942 looked mostly like an european city (nicknamed "the white pearl of the Indian Ocean").