Sunday showed a “lone individual” climbing the mountain, scaling the sign’s ladders and hanging tarpaulins over the O’s to change them to E’s, said Sgt.

News of its demise emerged after a social media post appeared to show the mural being cut down behind a tarpaulin.

Small shacks of wood, corrugated iron and scraps of tarpaulin cling to the sand dunes on the outskirts of Somalia's southern port city of Kismayo.