|
|
|
|
|
Somalia:
Mogadishu residents back to living in constant danger |
15 Feb 2007
12:51:07 GMT
Source: IRIN
Reuters and AlertNet are not responsible for
the content of this article or for any
external internet sites. The views expressed
are the author's alone.
-------------------------------
MOGADISHU,
15 February (IRIN) - Maryan Aliyow Isse
had hoped the security situation in
Mogadishu would stabilise after the
Ethiopian-backed transitional government
took control of the Somali capital in
December.
She was wrong. "We are in constant danger,"
said Maryan, who lives with her four
children among 945 displaced families in a
compound that used to be the Taleh
government school in the southern Hodan
district. "Mortars explode near the camp
every night."
Other Mogadishu residents said worsening
violence had already forced many families to
leave the city. "Many families have left,"
Muhammed Rage told IRIN. "It is not an
exodus yet but you can see families moving,
particularly from the south of the city."
Many of those leaving were heading south to
the nearby towns of Afgoi and Merka, and
others as far north as Beletweyne (340km
north of Mogadishu), he added. According to
the United Nations, an estimated 1,000
people left Mogadishu in January due to fear
of conflict and instability.
The recent attacks, Mogadishu-based aid
workers said, have targeted both military
and government installations, as well as
internally displaced people. On 2 February,
a mortar attack hit Taleh, killing four
people and wounding dozens of others.
Three days later, another hit Liban camp in
southern Mogadishu. Abdirahman Fatih, a
displaced person in the camp, said eight
people, most of them women and children,
were killed.
"The mortars were fired by unidentified
people," Maryan said. "I worry about the
safety of my children."
Security deteriorating
Mogadishu, residents said, had become more
insecure since the Union of Islamic Courts (UIC)
left the city, having been routed by
Ethiopian and Somali government troops. The
Transitional Federal Government, formed in
Kenya in 2004, had never managed to take
full control of the country, instead
remaining holed up in the southern towns of
Jowhar and Baidoa.
Deafening sounds of artillery fire and
bullets boom throughout the city on most
nights, as insurgents opposed to the
transitional government target sites
associated with it, using rockets, mortars
and various other weapons.
According to Mogadishu residents, the UIC,
which administered the capital and a swathe
of the south for nearly seven months,
restored much-needed peace, stability and
order - even if many Somalis found it harder
to make money after the Islamists banned a
narcotic, Khat, which is widely consumed in
Somalia.
"Women are now taken away and raped by armed
gangs at night when they go out because
toilets are very scarce here so we use the
open at nights," Murayo Mohamoud Hassan, a
36-year-old mother of four, said.
The troops deployed in the city, she
claimed, shoot at displaced people's camps
whenever they suspect that gunmen may have
sneaked in. "We do not know where to flee
to," she said. "We are victimised by both
the Ethiopians and unknown armed men firing
rockets at Ethiopians."
Echoing that view, Fadumo Hassan, a mother
of one living in Coca-Cola camp, said the
UIC had encouraged Somalis to help each
other. "When Islamists were here even
Somalis in the diaspora helped us, sending
money. But now everything is stuck," she
said.
Rage said the displaced had been most
affected by the current insecurity. "They
don't have a support base here so they
cannot expect much help from the local
population," he said.
Somali government officials acknowledge the
situation is dangerous, but vow they are
working to restore order. "I am ready to die
defending the capital," the transitional
deputy defence minister Salad Ali Jelle
said.
Increased hardship
More than 870 families live in Coca-Cola (a
former Coca-Cola factory) in the south of
the capital. Some fled drought in their
villages years ago and have lived here ever
since.
Halimo Mo'ow, a mother of eight, said she
left her village 130km south of Mogadishu a
year ago. "We fled the village after
droughts killed our goats and threatened my
children. But here life is really hard. My
husband is unemployed," she explained.
To earn money, she carries a 20 litre
jerry-can of water to sell to small
restaurants in the narrow alleys of Bakara
market where donkey carts carrying a barrel
of water cannot enter. From this, she earns
15,000 Somali shillings (US$1) - not enough
to meet the needs of her large family. "The
kids go out begging to help the family," she
explained.
However, she says, armed militias often rob
the children. "The militias pretend they
represent us. We cannot say anything because
they will kill us if open our mouths. They
take most of the donations," she said.
After the torrential rains and floods that
hit southern and central Somalia in 2006,
hundreds of families displaced by the floods
were forced to flee to Mogadishu. Many live
in compounds such as Taleh and Coca-Cola -
former government schools, unused military
compounds or factories.
However, while they may have shelter, the
displaced face extreme difficulties. "No one
in Taleh camp is able to pay medical fees.
When they are wounded by shrapnel, they are
treated if they are lucky by [getting]
contributions of money from other people,"
Maryan said.
Local leaders said the difficulties endured
by the displaced had hardened opinion
against the country's leaders and their
Ethiopian backers. The lingering presence of
Ethiopian troops in Somalia and the proposal
to send in African peacekeepers, they
argued, could only be justified if the
transitional government could sort out the
rampant insecurity in the capital.
"Since the Ethiopians entered Mogadishu, we
are under curfew," Abdi Hassan, leader of
the Shabeele compound near Bandir hospital,
said. "Yet we are very vulnerable to mortars
and rockets that unknown men fire at the
Ethiopian bases near us."
More than 700 displaced people live in
Shabeele. Most, Hassan said, were unemployed
and had no skills. "Most of them push
wheelbarrows, carrying people's stuff to
earn their daily bread [and] the women go
out to beg and wash clothes for other
people," he explained.
Resistance and survival
Frustration with the worsening security
situation has started to boil over. On 9
February, two demonstrations took place
after prayers. The first was at Ex-Control
intersection in the northern suburb of the
capital. Here, for the first time, 10 masked
men claimed responsibility for rocket
attacks against Ethiopian troops in
Mogadishu.
"We are the 'Somali People's Resistance
Movement'," a man who called himself
Abdirazak told hundreds of protesters. "We
are warning other African countries trying
to send troops to Somalia to back off or
here will be their graveyard," he shouted.
In the frenzy, Kenyan, Ethiopian, Ugandan
and American flags were set ablaze by the
demonstrators. Abdirizak claimed attacks
against foreign troops would continue until
they all left the country.
Separately, an estimated 300 people, most of
them younger men and women, demonstrated in
Tribunka Square at the centre of the
capital, chanting anti-government slogans.
They demanded that nightly mortar attacks
should stop.
Despite the violence, however, the displaced
have to make ends meet. Murayo said she had
encouraged her older teenage child to become
a shoe cleaner. Two younger ones sell
peanuts on a street corner.
"With my smallest child on my back, I sell
toothbrushes [sticks]," she said. "Our
livelihood hinges on this. Sometimes, our
income is hardly enough for one meal a day.
You can see my small child - malnutrition is
prevalent in the camp."
Convinced that the transitional government
has brought worse times to the capital, she
adds: "Life has been so hard since the UIC
have gone."
Like Murayo, Maryan, who divorced her
husband three years ago, has to cope with
the demands of bringing up her children. "I
feed my children by going to Bakara market
and carrying items on my back for people. I
earn 10,000 Somali shillings [less than
US$1] or less sometimes," she explained.
While she is in the market, the kids remain
in the shelter - and at risk of attack.
"Constant danger from all types of weapons
has become part of our life in Mogadishu,"
she says. "The displaced people in Somalia
have become victims of war."
See related stories at [http://www.irinnews.org/frontpage.asp?SelectRegion=Horn_of_Africa
and SelectCountry=Somalia
|
|
|
|
|
