Behind the sandbags, blast barriers, barbed wires and high walls, are impressive modern buildings in Somalia’s capital city. Despite the country struggling with war and drought, there is a strong pride in being Somali.



Mogadishu, the capital of Somalia, is reportedly one of the most dangerous places in the world, off limits to most foreigners and a risky place for Somali government officials. Travel advisories don’t mince their words: “Do not travel to Somalia, due to armed conflict, the ongoing very high threat of terrorist attacks and kidnapping, and dangerous levels of violent crime,” they read.



For more than three decades Somalia has battled terrorism, drought, famine and war. A drive through its capital throws up reminders of the past in the form of bullet-ridden buildings and smashed concrete rubble that has been pushed to the side of the streets. In the middle of a main intersection where two truck bombings five years ago killed 587 people and injured 316, a donkey stands chewing on garbage, unfazed by the armed convoys driving past.



Four kilometers from the Green Zone, which is how distance is measured in this war-torn city, the once tarred roads are covered with sand and dust due to years of neglect. Styled on the Baghdad safe zone, the heavily-guarded security zone around Aden Adde airport is controlled by government security forces who man the checkpoints in and out.



It’s dangerous for non-Somalis to move around the capital. Most embassy, United Nations and NGO staff hold their meetings inside the Green Zone. Attacks by the al-Shabaab militant group have increased since the president recently ramped up an offensive against them and the areas of Somalia they control.



If you’re planning a trip to the capital, your first point of call is a security company. During my visit they advised me not to leave the secure compound where I slept and ate, at any time, for anything, without informing them.



Even a trip inside the Green Zone saw me being driven in a heavily-armed vehicle, wearing a bulletproof vest, as part of a convoy with six local contractors armed with AK47, riding in the front.



It wasn’t always like this. For millennia, this ancient port city connected traders across the Indian Ocean. In the 1800s, the country was colonized by Britain and Italy and the faded facades of mostly Italian architecture can be seen on some of the buildings.



While independence came in 1960, decades of civil war followed that virtually destroyed the economy and infrastructure and split Somalia into areas under the rule of various entities. Since the late 2000s, the US military has supported the government in its counter-terrorism operations as part of the ongoing ‘Global War on Terror’ that followed the September 11 attacks in 2001.



This has translated into more security and soldiers on the roads.



The struggle to survive underlies the friendliness and graciousness of the population. Soft-spoken and extremely polite, the Somalis I meet are those who work in the security compound that is my temporary home, as well as government officials and businessmen in their elaborate offices. It’s strange but behind the sandbags, blast barriers, barbed wires and high walls, are impressive modern buildings.



We arrive at one in a more rural part of the Mogadishu outskirts after passing a man sauntering down the road with an AK47 assault rifle casually slung over his shoulder. The driver confirms he’s alShabaab.



Driving into the complex, two watchguards are fast asleep on dirty mattresses in the garden, using their PK machine guns as pillows. They yawn, eye us, turn over and go back to sleep.



March and April are the hottest seasons and temperatures can soar to 34 degrees with 83% humidity. In a few months, unless something drastic and unforeseen happens, the country will be battling its sixth consecutive drought season. Dotted around the capital are camps for internally-displaced people that date back years but which still see newcomers arriving on a daily basis. The orange tarpaulin stick-framed structures shelter the estimated 1.3 million people who’ve moved here from other parts of the country. Eighty percent are women and children.



My security detail prevents me from leaving the safety of an armed Land Cruiser whenever we are on the roads. The vehicle fights its way through checkpoints, competing with an endless stream of mostly red three-wheeled bajajis (tuk-tuks) careering around – by far the most popular mode of transport in Mogadishu.



Through the bulletproof windows, hand-painted shops and garage signs bring color and vibrancy to the streets. New coffee houses are springing up in an attempt to introduce a sense of normality to the beleaguered capital. Women carry bundles of firewood on their heads as they walk along the pavements in their colorful hijabs while men play boardgames, lounging outside on plastic chairs.



Dromedary camels are in the middle of everything, often resting in the shade of a palm tree. I wish I could see more. I wish I could walk these streets and chat with the vendors who are endlessly curious to see foreigners. The country has a lot to offer. There are a number of historical sites, beaches, waterfalls, mountain ranges and national parks. After dozens of meetings and a brief glimpse into Somali life, it’s the resilience and optimism of the people that touches me the most.



I’m showered with a lot of hospitality and care, and despite the country struggling with war and drought, there is a strong pride in being Somali. Down-to-earth, people here are generally happy with what they have. There might be a lack of development and overwhelming challenges but as more than one Somali told me: “I only have one passport and this is my home, I have no intention of going anywhere else.”

Mogadishu Street Life Goes On, Despite Risk Of Al Shabaab Attack

More To Mogadishu: The Resilience And Pride In Being Somali

As the rubbish built up on the rubble of Mogadishu’s wrecked streets, Ahmed Abdullah saw a business opportunity. 



He recruited a team of workers &#8211; many of them refugees from Somalia’s long conflict &#8211; and sent them out to collect plastic bags, bottles and wrappers to turn into roof tiles and other recycled goods.



“They cannot break, you see,” Abdullah said has he threw some of his tiles onto the floor to show their strength. “They are made of the recycled plastics and soil.”



Years of fierce fighting in the coastal city have destroyed its infrastructure and left the surviving buildings pocked with bullet holes.



The cash-strapped government is struggling to control a vast, divided country where Islamist militants from the al Qaeda-linked al Shabaab group still launch regular attacks on the capital.



Regular rubbish collection is way down the state’s list of priorities.



“A lot of rubbish like plastics, paper bags &#8230; are thrown outside the city,” said Abdullah. When the piles get too big, he added, people start dumping it in the ocean.



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="999" height="666" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/RC1A64D76950.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-38741" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/RC1A64D76950.jpg 999w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/RC1A64D76950-300x200.jpg 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/RC1A64D76950-600x400.jpg 600w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/RC1A64D76950-768x512.jpg 768w" sizes="(max-width: 999px) 100vw, 999px" /><figcaption> Employees fill bags with shredded plastic litter to be made into roofing tiles at the Envirogreen recycling plant in Mogadishu, Somalia January 13, 2019. Picture taken January 13, 2019. REUTERS/Feisal Omar </figcaption></figure>



So, in June 2018, he and others founded their company, Green Plastic.



Muslimo Aden Ali said he gets paid 3,000 Somali shillings ($5.18) for every kg of waste he brings in.



“We carry the rubbish on our heads and backs. It is a nice job. We survive on this,” he said.



Maryan Abdullahi, a 35-year-old mother displaced by fighting, said she walks more than 10 km (7 miles) a day searching for plastic.



“I cannot sleep at night because of back ache but this is the only way I can raise food for my children.”



-Abdi Sheikh

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Somalis Turn a Profit by Transforming Their Scrap Plastic

Conflict, drought and floods have pushed a record number of Somalis into Mogadishu, making it Africa’s most crowded city, the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre said.



With more than 340,000 people forced to flee their homes in the first half of 2018, the year is likely to produce Somalia’s highest number of displacements in a decade, said the Geneva-based center, part of the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC).



“Somali families are fleeing to Mogadishu seeking shelter, protection and aid,” Evelyn Aero, the NRC aid agency’s regional adviser, said.



“With nowhere else to go, crowding into these camps means that they will be living in unhealthy environment that is unsafe.”



Somalia has been trying to recover from conflict that engulfed the country in 1991, when clan warlords overthrew a dictator and then turned on each other. Over the past decade it has faced an insurgency waged by al Qaeda-linked al Shabaab.



While parts of Somalia are plagued by militant violence, a degree of stability in the capital, Mogadishu, and the prospect of humanitarian assistance, attract the rural poor.



Some 2.6 million people live in Mogadishu, with more than 28,000 people per square kilometer, making the Indian Ocean city the second most densely populated in the world after Dhaka in Bangladesh, NRC said, citing the website Demographia.



Erratic rainfall, prolonged drought, floods and difficulties accessing markets continue to drive rural Somalis into urban areas, following a 2011 famine which killed 260,000 people.



“We are continuing to observe new internally displaced families arriving in Mogadishu,” said Melaki Yirga, deputy regional director for the charity Mercy Corps.



“These women, men and children have very little access to humanitarian support such as basic food.”



About 600,000 displaced people live across Mogadishu, with many families evicted multiple times as developers, buoyed by a construction boom, seek to build on land where informal settlements have sprung up, NRC said.



About a third of new displacements recorded in the Horn of Africa country from 2017 to mid-2018 were to, or within, the war-scarred city, NRC said.



Some 4.2 million Somalis &#8211; a third of the population &#8211; will need humanitarian aid and protection in 2019, one-third less than in 2018, largely due to good rainfall this year, the United Nations says.



More than 60 percent of these people &#8211; 2.6 million &#8211; are internally displaced, with female-headed households, children and the elderly particularly at risk, it says.



<ul class="wp-block-list"><li> Kevin Mwanza</li></ul>

gettyimages-978579482-594×594

War, Hunger And A Housing Boom: Welcome To Africa’s Most Crowded City

A string of fresh piracy attacks off the coast of Somalia spells uncertainty for commodity dealers and consumers in East Africa.
The shock hijacking of a commercial oil tanker, the MT Aris 13, in March ended a five-year lull in piracy on the key Indian Ocean route around the Gulf of Aden. In early April, it is suspected Somali pirates seized an Indian dhow, Al–Kausar, on its way to the port of Bosaso in northern Somalia’s semi-autonomous Puntland region, while another bulk carrier, OS 35, was hijacked a few days later. It has sparked fears of a return of the menace the caused global concern at its peak between 2011 and 2013.
In 2016, the International Maritime Bureau (IMB) recorded two incidents of failed attacks off Somalia. Pirates attempted to attack a container vessel in the Gulf of Aden in May, and fired on a product tanker in the Somali basin 300 nautical miles from shore in October. The attempts showed that the threat of piracy had not disappeared.
The latest back-to-back attacks have prompted an EU naval force operating on the sea route to urge “for vigilance to all ships transiting the piracy high risk area”.
Commodity dealers and consumers in East Africa should pray that these are isolated incidents rather than a precursor to the return of piracy on this key sea route that links eastern Africa to the Arabian Gulf, Europe and beyond.
At its peak a few years ago, securing captured vessels, cargo and crew off the coast of Somalia cost the global shipping industry billions of dollars in ransom pay-outs. The menace also led to increased operational costs due to higher insurance premiums and the use of longer alternative routes around the coast of South Africa. The shipping lines also had to incur the extra expense of hiring security personnel to escort vessels through the troubled route around the Gulf of Aden, as well as other pre-emptive measures, such as installing watchtowers and razor wire.
Shipping lines did not absorb the heat alone. The pain of inflation trickled down the supply chain, causing the prices of basic industrial and household items to rally sharply.
With East Africa’s huge dependence on import commodities, such as farming and industrial machinery, vehicles, clinker, steel and petroleum, the return of piracy on Somali waters means consumers will be squeezed even more. The booming infrastructure and housing projects in East Africa would also suffer a jolt of higher implementation budgets, reflecting the cost variations attributable to the piracy.
Exporters from East Africa will then face the challenge of keeping their commodities competitive in markets abroad due to the higher cost of shipment.
Ship owners have no doubt been blinded by the lengthy lull in attacks and even began taking on very risky routes to save of costs and time. Some shipping lines have returned to the extremely vulnerable route between Somalia and Socotra Island, in the Arabian Sea, that is commonly known as the Socotra Gap. In fact, the MT Aris 13 was seized by pirates as it attempted to sail through the Socotra Gap at low speed.
It would be in the interest of global forces to reinvigorate patrols on this key route to prevent a fresh escalation of piracy. This has been done before with wonderful results.
Military incursions in the Somali region have helped stem piracy attacks on key shipping routes around the Gulf of Aden since 2012, bringing hope for efficient freight services and the lower cost of goods entering and leaving the East African market.
More effort must also be made on land to weed out militant groups that may be using piracy to bankroll their activities. Almost two decades of lawlessness in Somalia, without a substantive government, provided a breeding ground for extortionist groups that resort to illegal means to stay afloat. With Somalia’s economy still in ruin, the urge for militant groups to take up activities such as piracy to make ends meet remains high.
Troops, backed by the United Nations and African Union, battling the Al-Shabaab militants should be supported to end the despair caused by these crooks.
Until they are stopped, East Africans will feel the pain.

Fishing Trawlers Released From Pirate Control

Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water

Fadumo Dayib has led a remarkable life. She mourned the loss of siblings, fled her country, was deported, and then became just another number among the many refugees in Europe. Despite these obstacles, Dayib went on to get a Master’s degree at Harvard and work for the United Nations. Having already achieved more than expected, Dayib is looking to beat even slimmer odds by running to be Somalia’s president.
Somalia is one of the world’s most dangerous places; it’s even worse if you’re a woman.
The strife began in the 1980s when opposition regimes started an uprising against Somalia’s dictatorial president, Siad Barre. Although Barre is dead, the conflict never ceased. Terrorist groups, such as Al Shabaab, have emerged and piracy around the horn of Africa is rampant.
Dayib is one of millions who have had to flee the conflict. The 43-year-old was born in Kenya where her mother moved to after losing 11 children to treatable illnesses. But the family’s stay in Kenya was short-lived as the country began forceful deportations in 1989.
Her mother sold all her possessions for Dayib and her two siblings to seek asylum in Finland. After only learning to fully read and write at the age of 14, Dayib proceeded to get two Master’s degrees in public health and nursing. She later got another Master’s from Harvard in public administration.
Dayib has worked for prestigious institutions, including the United Nations. Not content, she walked away from the safety and relative comfort of Finland to the gunshots and grenade attacks of Somalia.
“It is because I love Somalia. I have lived in the diaspora since 1990, but I knew my roots were in Somalia. I moved to Finland as a refugee and I was sure that one day I would go back to Somalia. To me, being a refugee didn’t mean I should never go back to my homeland,” she says.
She returned home to be a part of the change she hoped to see.
“I watched from the sidelines as the country lost it, women died unnecessarily, children died of treatable diseases, elders were neglected, among other injustices. I thought that I did not need to do this but it was my moral obligation and civic duty.”
Since announcing her intention to run, Dayib has received death threats.
“If we all give up, what will become of our country? I am compelled to choose between death and life, if need be, so that at least we can have a peaceful country,” she says.
“I would like to go home, over 1.2 million Somalis would like to go home from the diaspora, there are one million people who are internally displaced and they all want a dignified existence in their own country. I believe if one dies fighting for something they believe in, that’s the most dignified death,” she says.
She does not see herself as a politician.
“I am a layperson who feels that the time has come for us to take power and responsibility from politicians because they are not doing what they set out to do. Rather than sit and complain, I am of the opinion that we need to take charge,” says Dayib.
In Somalia, many believe that women hold no place in leadership. From the onset, political pundits have shrugged her off, saying the odds are stacked against her.
Her humility and grace means she doesn’t take offence to this. As others campaigned against her, Dayib knew she had already won.
“My ultimate goal is to instigate social change by challenging the current status quo. In a country, continent and society like mine, where a woman’s space is mostly considered to be in a private place, at home, my candidacy inspires a lot of women, young girls as well as the youth. I am a catalyst; my aim is to open doors for my children and their children for social change,” she says.
In that regard, whatever happens at the poll, she has already won.

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The Woman Changing The Status Quo

It’s a dark and strange way to earn a living – in which you can die. If you survive, it is often prostrate on a pile of pills or swimming in an ocean of alcohol.
It is a painful story for one of Africa’s most accomplished journalists, Angus Shaw, to tell. It is also painful to listen to his excruciating experiences.
“A warzone produces two types of journalistic victims – one is shot at and injured or dies and the other type ends up screwed up in their brains,” says Shaw.
“I realized that you can’t drown your sorrows because your sorrows in most cases have learned how to swim. I try not to worry about things I cannot change and always remember that as a journalist my role is to shed light and not to bring change.”
Shaw had his own fight with alcohol. In covering wars in three decades, he says it was not all gloomy.
<div id="attachment_4869" style="width: 310px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-4869" class="wp-image-4869 size-medium" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/006-300x175.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="175" />United Nations media accreditation card, Somalia. Sgt. Rocko who typed it out clearly wasn’t familiar with the first name Angus</div>
“People should know that the African story is not all about wars, poverty and savagery. Journalism for me has been enriching, rewarding, except financially,” he chuckles.
Shaw has been on the frontline in a string of Africa’s nastiest wars: Liberia, Rwanda’s genocide, Ethiopia, Somalia, two wars in Mozambique. In Zimbabwe, the country of his birth, he saw war as both a journalist and a conscript.
The story of the Shaw family is intertwined with a century of tumult in Africa. His grandfather came north from South Africa with the pioneer column in 1890. Settlers were looking for gold and diamonds but ended up farming. Shaw’s grandfather and father prospered in tobacco and lived the life of Riley.
“My father was part of the Salisbury Club and, like many of his peers, he drank hard and worked hard. Due to his drinking lifestyle one day he forgot to come and pick me up from school and only showed up late and drunk.”
Shaw senior also smashed his car into the Salisbury Club, a gentlemen’s club in Harare, after a few drinks with one wheel of his car landing in the hotel lobby. The authorities took his driver’s licence. So, he had to be driven later by his chauffer over 1,500 miles from his Miegunyah farm, 30 kilometers from Harare to Durban, for the Durban July horse race.
Along the way, Shaw’s father put money away for his son to choose between business or school. Shaw chose the latter and went to a minor public school in England.
“After a short stint in the United Kingdom, I returned to Southern Rhodesia, where I would start my journalism career at the Rhodesian Herald in 1970. Those days there were no journalism schools so one had to go for attachment,” he says.
Shaw was soon thrust into reporting the violent bush war leading up to Mozambican independence in 1975. When Samora Machel took over Mozambique, a civil war broke out that would last nearly three decades.
“In Mozambique we were traveling in the company of the Zimbabwean forces and UN peacekeepers. The Zimbabwean forces were mainly protecting their pipeline, while Samora Machel was fighting to keep control from the Renamo rebels.”
After Mozambique, the Rhodesian army drafted him to fight the guerrillas back home.
After he served his time in the rank, he left to interview nationalist exiles in Lusaka and Dar es Salaam. It was not easy.
“Every able bodied white man going through an airport needed to have a clearance,” he says.
“All of the nationalist leaders whose names are inscribed on roads in the capital, Harare, related to me on first name basis.”
They included Robert Mugabe, Josiah Tongogara and Simon Mazorodze.
“I first met Robert Mugabe when I had gone to the townships. I asked if I could interview him and he said he could only talk to me if I arranged a press conference for him in the city center, which I did.”
His experiences in his country’s war would lead to his first book- Kandaya, Another Time, Another Place.
When he moved on it was to the hell of Idi Amin’s Uganda.
“Kampala was on fire, the city was in ruins as there were bodies all over. What I saw made World War Two look elementary,” he says.
The 1978-79 Ugandan war pitted the Tanzanian liberation forces against Amin’s army.
“There were mass graves and as we accompanied the liberation forces to Luzira prison where opponents of Amin were caged, one could not fight back emotions. Prisoners were starved and in one of those prison cells, I threw up. It’s all about wealth, power and corruption,” says Shaw, whom many journalist friends believe is too ideological.
His memories of the Ugandan war would lead to his second book, written in a hotel room in London, Last To Kill, The Rise And Fall Of Idi Amin.
“I wrote the last chapter of this book in the plane to London. A limousine waited for me at Heathrow Airport and with Concorde the book was on its way the following day to New York. Four days later, the book was on sale.”
There was no stopping after Uganda.
<div id="attachment_4868" style="width: 310px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-4868" class="wp-image-4868 size-medium" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/0005-300x191.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="191" />Media evacuation from Rwanda aboard a U.N. C130 cargo plane</div>
“In 1979, I also went to cover the Somalia-Ethiopia war. This was a conventional desert war and because of a 16-hour drive on a tractor when one was injured, many died before they could reach medical services. The hum of trucks, tractors and aircrafts drowned the heat of the desert. Journalists were isolated as fighting forces didn’t want anyone outside to know what was happening,” he says.
Shaw returned to Somalia after a clan war broke out. This war almost took his life.
“This was during the famine relief efforts that turned nasty. There were Americans, Germans, Canadians and UN representatives. Americans took a lot of causalities and it’s the same war that Mujahedeen shot down an American Black Hawk,” he says.
Hollywood made a movie out of this, called Black Hawk Down. The reality was worse.
“Americans were sending bodies back home in body bags. One African American said to me ‘we came to help our brothers but they are shooting us’.”
Shaw says war reporting can be seductive as well as disruptive.
“I remember being in Nairobi and felt it strange not to hear any gunshots.”
“I was lucky not to be killed; it was dangerous that we had to always move with bodyguards. Out of seven foreign correspondents that were covering the clan war in Somalia, four died in the country.”
Then came Rwanda in 1994.
“I spent several months there, I saw nice people killing nice people. I cannot describe the experience,” he says.
Nearly a million people are believed to have died in this ethnic war in 100 days.
“The United Nations had burned their fingers in Somalia and when they sent peacekeepers in Rwanda, they didn’t send enough. We went to various massacre sights, in some places we saw people running through the bushes with machetes. In Rwanda we saw piles and piles of bodies.”
What Shaw saw in Rwanda would never leave him.
“I have never been a church person, when you see such horror; you look to the skies and ask God what’s going on. That is where I saw that human nature is imperfect,” he says.
After traveling and covering wars it was time to write about events in his country.
“Between 1988 and 1998 we experienced a lot of multicultural and multiracial relations. The country was prospering but as Mugabe started losing power, all that changed,” says Shaw.
Shaw survived war, but in peacetime Zimbabwe, he was arrested three times. Mugabe saw journalists as agents of the West and supporters of his rival, Morgan Tsvangirai. From his journalism experiences sprang a third book, Mutoko Madness, A Memoir Of Angus Shaw.
“Seven years ago, I went into rehabilitation after a friend convinced me to. I was taught to count my blessings.”
He also believes the changing nature of news gathering led to him being rendered redundant.
“The media has changed so much; I am an old newspaper guy. News agencies are having a hard time. You can’t write a story with 700 words. I like ink on my fingers.”
Shaw has proved this in the dangerous business of shedding light in Africa.

Shedding Light  On Renewable Energy

‘You Can’t Drown Your Sorrows; They Have Learned How To Swim’

There are many conflicts in Somalia, not just Al-Shabaab vs the good guys. Clan fights probably top the list.
“Let me explain some of what I do,” a peacemaker tells me over lunch at the heavily fortified Jazeera Hotel in Mogadishu.
“You see there are these two clans, ve-ery important,” he says, stretching the ‘very’ as Somalis are apt to do. “The Dir, and the Maheran.”
Soft spoken, more of an academic than a fighter, he spoons the traditional green grated hot chili mixture into his soup.
Ibrahim Mohamed works on conflict transformation for the Zamzam Foundation.
“These two clans have been fighting, and I have been going there for two years, trying to get them to talk. I have one man from each clan who accompanies me, but at first only to an imaginary line in the sand, he will go no further.”
We are talking of a remote area called Galguduud, and then of an even more remote area called Inagebeli in central Somalia. The latter is an area where there is no cellphone reception, an important consideration when you are sitting under a tree trying to make peace between two warring clans.
“Eventually,” Ibrahim says, pushing his spectacles up his nose, “I get one clan to accept the other clan’s man coming with me all the way, after promising the man that he will be safe, telling him if he is killed I will be killed too.”
“So we meet, and then one clan leader agrees to go with me to the other clan, a big step, and then the other clan leader comes to his clan without me, which is a good sign.”
Now we are into negotiations. In a war between the clans some 15 years ago, 20 more Maheran died than Dir. But if you calculate things only after the war, 12 more Dir died in those past 15 years. Each side calculates from the date that suits them.
Restitution for the balance is at an agreed 100 camels per person. Plus you must return the killed person’s weapon, and the weapon with which he or she was killed.
“Of course you don’t have to pay that. There is the 30 percent forgiveness factor, so you only pay 70.”
Naively I ask: “So the family get 70 camels, or AKs?”
“Oh no. No, no, no. Only 10 percent goes to the family, the clan gets the rest.”
So seven for the family, 63 for the clan?
“No. It is calculated on the original amount, so 10 for the family.”
For each one killed in excess of those killed on the other side?
“Yes. Unless it is a woman or a girl of course.”
Huh?
“They are only worth 50 camels, minus the 30 percent.”
So girls are worth camels, men worth AK47s?
“No, no, no. An AK is worth $1,200, and a camel is worth the same. So in my negotiations I have asked if we can swop the AKs for camels to exact retribution. So far they have not accepted this.”
What if the UN bought the camels and paid everyone at 70 camels per deficit?
“No good. The killer’s family must feel the pain.”
This negotiation style is 2,000 years old in Somalia, so to change things is difficult.
Who is the ‘they’ I ask him.
“The elders. We sit under a tree, clan elders at the back, behind them the women. Last time I went, we hoped to conclude in two days, but we were there for two weeks. During this time, they slaughter animals daily to feed everyone. And provide water in a tanker every day.”
How many people?
“About 400, more or less, with the women.”
And did you get a resolution?
He sighs. “No. We are still talking. We cannot get around the problem of 12 for one side and 20 for the other.”
Like most Somalis, he is confident the country is on the up and up.
There is still the small matter of defeating Al-Shabaab. And there are not enough camels even in Australia to do that. Guns might. Somalia is counting on it.

Death Measured In Camels And Guns

Somalia’s coast, famed for piracy, is fast becoming tamed. Hundreds of miles of beaches with hardly a soul on them. No parrots, peg legs or pieces of eight. No Black Hawks down.
I flew in over a deep, deep blue ocean, flecked by white horses. A visible reef guards Mogadishu, the capital. There is the bright glare of white sand and dust everywhere, especially when you enter the Mogadishu International Airport (MIA), which is the ‘green zone’, a secure zone within which lies MIA.
Now here’s the thing, I’m writing about this country and all I’ve really seen is the MIA. But there is much to tell.
To even begin to understand what’s happening, you need a few basic acronyms. UNSOM and UNSOA, AMISOM and&#8230; oh, to hell with it.
Suffice to say, seven armies in Somalia are trying to subdue the dreaded Al-Shabaab and restore government to a country that hasn’t seen one for 22 years. In true African fashion, the politicians are still stuffing around, bickering between President and Prime Minister, fiddling while the country continues to smoulder.
Yet the fire of Al-Shabaab has been curbed from its rampant deadly destruction. There are successes for the armies of good, but the gains are fragile. Luckily the military presence is not wracked with the same kind of interminable arguing about who is in charge.
The African Union (AU) is really in charge of the military, but the AU sort of reports to the United Nations (UN), which has about 22,000 foreign troops in the country. That’s quite a lot of soldiers. Not enough, says the Force Commander, but he would, wouldn’t he. Sadly, many have been killed fighting – not for their own country but fighting for Somalia to become governable.
Vast tracts of land have been recaptured from Al-Shabaab’s influence, and in this year the soldiers are valiantly trying to keep militants away from this recaptured territory. The Force Commander says his forces now control 70% of the country.
Unfortunately Al-Shabaab does not play by the rules. It strikes with car bombs, suicide bombers, rockets, IEDs and general terror tactics. But the good guys are winning. On the ground that is, not necessarily in the political, global or African arenas.
Armies who have sent troops include Uganda, Kenya, Burundi, Sierra Leone, Ethiopia, Djibouti and Nigeria and they deserve praise for the sacrifices they have made. It is said that the UN has lost more troops here than in all their other operations combined. If true, it is a very disturbing statistic.
Things are still dangerous. On Christmas Day, the very place where I am typing this was attacked and two soldiers died. Yesterday, a car bomb exploded in Mogadishu, a literal stone’s throw away and an innocent shoe shiner died. But on the plus side, the day before, 23 Al-Shabaab people were killed by the armies in one firefight. Few people mourn the dead fanatics, and nor do I.
It is infuriating that armies are needed to restore basic human rights to people: the right to food, shelter, the right of girls to go to school, the rights of freedom to worship, freedom of speech. Al-Shabaab is wicked; it certainly does not represent Islam in the same way as the barbaric Spanish inquisitors did not represent Christianity.
The African Union Mission to Somalia (AMISOM) has brought the first fruits of peace to Somalia, and Somalis are beginning to tentatively taste the fruits. Much remains to be done, but there is already much to celebrate even if the world has not yet recognized the changes.
I spoke to some important people, the AU’s Ambassador in charge, the Force Commander, the Director of the UN contingent. All are hopeful, all cautiously optimistic.
My glimpse of the tame coast along the south central area of the country made me believe victory is possible. A very small victory, one of simply restoring government, but an important victory for Africa and especially the long-suffering Somalis.

Taming The Wildest Coast Of Africa

“And the Oscar goes to&#8230;”.
Five little words that caused writer and director Bryan Buckley to draw a deep breath:
“When you hear those words&#8230; and you happen to be one of the five guys it could possibly go to, it is, in itself, a crazy thought. It simply just doesn’t seem real. All the films could have easily won that night. And mentally you know this going into the evening. If I didn’t think we had put everything we had into our film, perhaps I would have been disappointed in myself and thought about what we didn’t nail in the film when the winner [Curfew] was announced. But I knew this wasn’t the case. It just wasn’t our night,” says Buckley.
<div id="attachment_1690" style="width: 209px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-1690" class="size-medium wp-image-1690" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/162620158-199x300.jpg" alt="" width="199" height="300" />Bryan Buckley and Mino Jarjoura with Harun and Ali Mohamed, on the red carpet</div>
He was in Los Angeles, California, at the 85th Academy Awards, where he was nominated for best live action short for ASAD—a tale of refugees, in Somalia. Sitting nervously by his side were the two leads, 14-year-old Harun Mohamed and his 12-year-old brother Ali. The day had flown by, moments before they were walking the red carpet alongside the A-listers—including Ben Affleck, Daniel Day-Lewis and Ang Lee—and doing interviews.
“The BBC was the first to interview the boys. Harun stepped forward to the microphone and began to talk about his journey in English. How far he had come, had never been so apparent. He and Ali were constantly asked what celeb they wanted to meet the most at the ceremony. And without question Harun would say Jackie Chan and Ali would say Jean-Claude Van Damme,” says Buckley.
It was a journey that began with the filming of ASAD in Africa.
Buckley is the last person you would expect to make a film about Somalia. His business is big-budget Super Bowl (American football) commercials for a quarter of a billion dollars with an audience of more than a million. Conversations with Somali refugees motivated him to create the short film with little commercial value or audience.
It all started in Kakuma Refugee Camp in Kenya, in 2010, where Buckley was shooting a documentary called No Autographs for the UN Human Right’s Council. He left with that feeling of hope in the face of despair. A year later he wrote ASAD.
The film was set in Somalia and shot in Cape Town. It tells the story of a young boy who must choose between life as a pirate or that of a humble fisherman. The entire cast was made up of refugees who had fled to South Africa.
Buckley says the biggest problem in producing the 18-minute short-film was overcoming the language barrier as both leads, Harun and Ali, were illiterate.
“We knew language, with the whole cast, was going to be a barrier by virtue that we were doing the entire film in Somali and I didn’t speak a single word of it. Right off the bat we enlisted in two Somali translators [who helped the boys memorize the script]&#8230; Both the boys are exceedingly bright. They picked up on things so quickly it was crazy. And then I’d act out some stuff and they would study it and follow. Always bringing their own twist. of course, like any Hollywood star would.”
The filming was taxing and Buckley struggled to shoot scenes with the rebels.
“There was just so much emotion there between them [the rebels] and the boys. It was quite clear this wasn’t the first time these refugees had handled guns. I kept thinking what horrible ghosts were haunting them after every take. And how bizarre [it was that] our cameras were recording every second of this nightmare.”
The international acclaim came with praise from Somali musician K’naan.
“He is truly a man who has supported Somalia and its people’s plight more than anyone I know. He said, ‘ASAD is an important film. It makes human the inaccurate caricature of Somalia, showing real people, a community and life beyond a land of pirates and warlords,’” he says.
The film won numerous awards at various international film festivals, including the Tribeca Film Festival and San Jose Film Festival. The Academy Awards nomination was the cherry on top but the leads almost didn’t make their big moment in Hollywood.
“The fact that they [Harun and Ali] didn’t have travel documents and that they were Somali refugees did not help matters. ASAD’s producer Mino Jarjoura worked around the clock with [South African producer] Rafiq Samsodien to get the kids there. It took government officials from both the US and South Africa, along with UNHCR to pull off the task. And they did so, in dramatic and perfect timing.”
Regardless of the outcome the team celebrated making it to the Oscars with a toast. After the ceremony they attended the prestigious Governor’s Ball.
Buckley may have walked away empty-handed but he and his two young leads stood tall for one of Africa’s untold stories.

Tag: Somalia

FORBES AFRICA SOCIAL MEDIA