Galkayo:
Six miles north of Galkayo, in a place called Halabokhad, 473 families are stuck in a makeshift settlement. The landscape is hot, dusty, bleak as their lives. They live in round, cramped tents made from clothing and straw. They become isolated, unable to afford transportation to town.
Local officials are in charge of the settlement, which is supported by the United Nations. But there is only one borehole for water. Food and medical care are also scarce. Bone-thin children have yellowish skin, a sign of malnutrition in a country where one of every seven children dies before age 5. Women deliver babies inside their tents, sometimes without help.
This is where Amina Aden arrived three months ago with her exhausted children and nothing else. Her neighborhood was engulfed by war. Her husband was killed in crossfire a day before they fled their home carrying only what they could. A few miles outside Mogadishu, masked men stopped their minibus filled with refugees. The youngest women were ordered out. Aden heard them scream while they were gang-raped. The men returned, and Aden braced herself. Her eight children surrounded her, crying, tugging at her clothes. The men looked at them, then grabbed another woman. "My children saved me," Aden, 35, recalled with a feeble smile.
After the rapes, the men delivered one final blow: They robbed all the passengers of their meager possessions. "They even took our sandals," Aden said.
Her children, ages 3 to 15, do not attend school. For breakfast, they drink tea. For lunch, they eat a bland porridge. There is never any dinner. "I cannot even buy milk powder for my baby," said her neighbor, Kaltoom Abdi Ali, 37. She, too, fled Mogadishu with her seven children after mortar shells crashed into her house two months ago. In the mayhem, she was separated from her husband. "I don't know where he is," Ali said.
Her 14-year-old and 16-year-old sons work 14 hours a day, washing cars, cleaning houses or collecting garbage for local residents. On most days, they earn $1. "I want my children to have an education, but if we leave here, life could be worse," Ali said. "No one cares about us."
For the most part, help is limited. After two decades of conflict, famine and drought, the United Nations has had difficulty raising funds to assist Somalis, U.N. refugee officials say. There's donor fatigue and, in a post-9/11 world, nations are preoccupied with terrorism, security and other global crises. The United States, Somalia's main donor, has provided more than $185 million to Somalia's government and an African Union peacekeeping force, but withheld humanitarian funding this year, fearing that al-Shabab was siphoning off foreign aid.
More than 2 million Somalis have sought haven in U.N.-supported refugee camps in neighboring countries and in settlements in nearly every region of Somalia. The conflict has significantly blocked the ability of U.N. and humanitarian agencies to deliver aid to south and central Somalia, which are under al-Shabab's control.
Here, and in other settlements around Galkayo, women fear the night.
Two weeks ago, three masked gunmen entered Asha Muse's tent. In front of her four children, they beat her and her niece, Muna. The men tore the women's clothes off and took turns raping them for two hours. One attacker stabbed Muna in the thigh with a knife.
Another turned to Ali's son. "If you make a sound, we will kill you," Muse recalled him saying. Before they left, the men stole $85 and some clothes. "Everybody rapes women. The soldiers, the militias, everybody," said Hawa Aden Mohammed, an activist who runs a women's shelter in Galkayo where victims of rape and other gender-based violence seek shelter. Muse and her niece did not inform the police or aid workers. Muse has stopped collecting garbage, fearing her attackers will spot her. Her neighbors, who helplessly listened to their screams, look at her sympathetically. "We can't go back to Mogadishu. We can't afford to leave here. We know we will get raped again," said Muse, her tears filling her eyes. "But there's nothing we can do."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/12/25/AR2010122501610.html?sid=ST2010122501660
Tuesday, 28 December 2010
Part One: Somalis are desperate for a new life, but refugees face a dangerous road
GALKAYO, SOMALIA Deka Mohamed Idou sat under a tree, exhausted after a grueling six-day journey. She touched her belly, yearning for her unborn child to kick.
This is why she took the long, bumpy road out of Mogadishu: War. A missing husband and three missing children. A shattered house. This is why she's here in this wind-swept no man's land between Somalia and Djibouti: Peace. Work. An education for her two other children. She can't see what awaits them. Perhaps sanctuary. Perhaps more suffering. But she's certain of one thing.
"I will deliver my baby in a place without gunfire," she said.
For Somalis, the road out of Mogadishu is a last resort. Those traveling on it have fled homes abruptly with terrified children, and crossed a wilderness of thieves, armed Islamists and marauding tribesmen. Many have been robbed, beaten, raped, even killed.
The situation in Mogadishu has become so bad that nearly 300,000 Somalis have made their way out this year, swelling the ranks of what is, after Iraq and Afghanistan, the third-largest refugee population from any country in the world. Most are women and children. The men who have survived have stayed behind to protect their homes, or they went ahead. Some have vanished in the chaos. Others are fighting.
The road, and the places along it, is the most visible evidence of a population still disintegrating, amid hopelessness and death, two decades after the collapse of Siad Barre's government plunged Somalia into an endless civil war.
Today, al-Shabab, a militia linked to al-Qaeda, controls large chunks of the Muslim country and seeks to overthrow the fragile U.S.-backed government. The militia's Taliban-like decrees and recruitment of children provide more reasons for Somalis to flee.
They travel north, often to places they have only imagined, arriving hungry and desperate. They join the hundreds of thousands who have fled since 1991, leaving behind a city that once had 2.5 million people.
Many remain too poor to flee. The ones with some means head for camps in Somali towns like Galkayo, Bossaso and Hargeisa, searching for peace and support. The ones with a few dollars more head for foreign lands - Djibouti, Yemen, Saudi Arabia - searching for a new life.
Those who succeed enter a world where they can be deported at any moment, where they are increasingly viewed as a security threat. Those who fail, and most do, are trapped in a humanitarian limbo, resigned to hardship, dependency and a broken life or they die.
They travel from one hell to another hell," said Ahmed Abdullahi, a U.N. refugee protection officer in Galkayo, 470 miles northwest of Mogadishu and often the first stop on the journey toward Djibouti and Yemen. These are the stories of women who have taken this road, from the places they end up.
The Washingtonpost.com
This is why she took the long, bumpy road out of Mogadishu: War. A missing husband and three missing children. A shattered house. This is why she's here in this wind-swept no man's land between Somalia and Djibouti: Peace. Work. An education for her two other children. She can't see what awaits them. Perhaps sanctuary. Perhaps more suffering. But she's certain of one thing.
"I will deliver my baby in a place without gunfire," she said.
For Somalis, the road out of Mogadishu is a last resort. Those traveling on it have fled homes abruptly with terrified children, and crossed a wilderness of thieves, armed Islamists and marauding tribesmen. Many have been robbed, beaten, raped, even killed.
The situation in Mogadishu has become so bad that nearly 300,000 Somalis have made their way out this year, swelling the ranks of what is, after Iraq and Afghanistan, the third-largest refugee population from any country in the world. Most are women and children. The men who have survived have stayed behind to protect their homes, or they went ahead. Some have vanished in the chaos. Others are fighting.
The road, and the places along it, is the most visible evidence of a population still disintegrating, amid hopelessness and death, two decades after the collapse of Siad Barre's government plunged Somalia into an endless civil war.
Today, al-Shabab, a militia linked to al-Qaeda, controls large chunks of the Muslim country and seeks to overthrow the fragile U.S.-backed government. The militia's Taliban-like decrees and recruitment of children provide more reasons for Somalis to flee.
They travel north, often to places they have only imagined, arriving hungry and desperate. They join the hundreds of thousands who have fled since 1991, leaving behind a city that once had 2.5 million people.
Many remain too poor to flee. The ones with some means head for camps in Somali towns like Galkayo, Bossaso and Hargeisa, searching for peace and support. The ones with a few dollars more head for foreign lands - Djibouti, Yemen, Saudi Arabia - searching for a new life.
Those who succeed enter a world where they can be deported at any moment, where they are increasingly viewed as a security threat. Those who fail, and most do, are trapped in a humanitarian limbo, resigned to hardship, dependency and a broken life or they die.
They travel from one hell to another hell," said Ahmed Abdullahi, a U.N. refugee protection officer in Galkayo, 470 miles northwest of Mogadishu and often the first stop on the journey toward Djibouti and Yemen. These are the stories of women who have taken this road, from the places they end up.
The Washingtonpost.com
Friday, 24 December 2010
Kenya endangering lives of Somali refugees, says rights group
MICHAEL LOGAN NAIROBI, KENYA Sapa -dpa Dec 08 2010
Human rights watchdog Amnesty International on Wednesday accused Kenya of endangering the lives of thousands of Somali refugees who are being deported back to their war-torn country in violation of international law.
Kenya hosts almost 300 000 Somalis in its Dadaab refugee complex, near the Kenya-Somalia border, which is at bursting point as thousands continue to flee a bloody Islamist insurgency.However, Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch said many thousands of those who make into Kenya are being returned to South and Central Somalia."Continued fighting and horrendous abuses in Somalia pose a very real threat to the lives of tens of thousands of children, women and men," said Michelle Kagari, Africa programme deputy director at Amnesty International. "No Somali should be forcibly returned to southern and central Somalia."Amnesty International said Kenyan authorities forcibly returned 8 000 refugees last month, who had fled fighting, while HRW cited cases of hundreds of Somalis being driven back to the border in pick-up trucks."Kenyan officials are flagrantly violating Somalis' right not to be returned to a place where their lives are at grave risk," said Gerry Simpson, senior refugee researcher for HRW. "The Kenyan government needs to send a clear message to provincial and local authorities that Somalis must not be deported to their war-torn country."Discussions have been ongoing between Kenya and the United Nations refugee agency UNCHR for years over the allocation of more land at the Dadaab complex, but no deal has been struck.
Bearing the brunt
Kenya feels it is bearing the brunt of the exodus from its neighbour, a point acknowledged by Amnesty International."Kenya disproportionately shoulders the responsibility for massive refugee flows from Somalia and needs more support from the international community, including European Union countries to provide durable solutions for these people," said Kagaria.
Somalia has been embroiled in chaos since the 1991 ouster of dictator Mohamed Siad Barre.The latest insurgency, which pits al-Qaeda-linked group al-Shabaab against the weak Western-backed government, kicked off in early 2007. Tens of thousands have been killed in fighting, while over a million people have fled their homes.
Source: Sapa -dpa
Copyright © 2010 WardheerNews.com
Human rights watchdog Amnesty International on Wednesday accused Kenya of endangering the lives of thousands of Somali refugees who are being deported back to their war-torn country in violation of international law.
Kenya hosts almost 300 000 Somalis in its Dadaab refugee complex, near the Kenya-Somalia border, which is at bursting point as thousands continue to flee a bloody Islamist insurgency.However, Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch said many thousands of those who make into Kenya are being returned to South and Central Somalia."Continued fighting and horrendous abuses in Somalia pose a very real threat to the lives of tens of thousands of children, women and men," said Michelle Kagari, Africa programme deputy director at Amnesty International. "No Somali should be forcibly returned to southern and central Somalia."Amnesty International said Kenyan authorities forcibly returned 8 000 refugees last month, who had fled fighting, while HRW cited cases of hundreds of Somalis being driven back to the border in pick-up trucks."Kenyan officials are flagrantly violating Somalis' right not to be returned to a place where their lives are at grave risk," said Gerry Simpson, senior refugee researcher for HRW. "The Kenyan government needs to send a clear message to provincial and local authorities that Somalis must not be deported to their war-torn country."Discussions have been ongoing between Kenya and the United Nations refugee agency UNCHR for years over the allocation of more land at the Dadaab complex, but no deal has been struck.
Bearing the brunt
Kenya feels it is bearing the brunt of the exodus from its neighbour, a point acknowledged by Amnesty International."Kenya disproportionately shoulders the responsibility for massive refugee flows from Somalia and needs more support from the international community, including European Union countries to provide durable solutions for these people," said Kagaria.
Somalia has been embroiled in chaos since the 1991 ouster of dictator Mohamed Siad Barre.The latest insurgency, which pits al-Qaeda-linked group al-Shabaab against the weak Western-backed government, kicked off in early 2007. Tens of thousands have been killed in fighting, while over a million people have fled their homes.
Source: Sapa -dpa
Copyright © 2010 WardheerNews.com
Amnesty International - Somali refugees in Kenya need protection not abuse
Kenya’s violations of the human rights of Somali refugees and asylum-seekers are putting thousands of lives at risk, Amnesty International said in a report released today.From life without peace to peace without life describes how thousands fleeing violence in Somalia are unable to find refuge, protection and lasting solutions in Kenya, due to the closure of the border between the two countries almost four years ago amid security concerns. “Continued fighting and horrendous abuses in Somalia pose a very real threat to the lives of tens of thousands of children, women and men. No Somali should be forcibly returned to southern and central Somalia,” said Michelle Kagari, Africa Programme Deputy Director at Amnesty International. According to media reports as yet unverified by Amnesty International, hundreds of Somalis were recently detained in a mass police operation targeting foreigners across Nairobi.Last month around 8000 Somali refugees who had fled across the border into Kenya from the Somali town of Belet Hawo following intense fighting there, were ordered to return to Somalia by the Kenyan authorities. Moreover, Kenyan police then forced about 3,000 of them further into Somalia, where they continue to be at risk of grave human rights abuses.
Read the complete story at Amnesty International
Read the complete story at Amnesty International
Monday, 8 November 2010
Women of the Year 2010: Dr. Hawa Abdi & Her Daughters
A Family Affair: From left: Dr. Amina Mohamed, Dr. Hawa Abdi and Dr. Deqo Mohamed, photographed during a business trip to Geneva, Switzerland, on September 18, 2010.They are Women of the Year because: “They are fearless. Their life’s purpose is to be of service to Somali refugees, and their unwavering fortitude in the face of insurmountable obstacles is a testament to the warrior spirit of women.”
On a still, hot morning last May, hundreds of Islamist militants invaded the massive displaced-persons camp that Dr. Hawa Abdi runs near Mogadishu, Somalia. They surrounded the 63-year-old ob-gyn’s office, holding her hostage and taking control of the camp. “Women can’t do things like this,” they threatened.
Dr. Abdi, who is equal parts Mother Teresa and Rambo, was unfazed. Every day in Somalia brings new violence as bands of rebels rove ungoverned. Today Somalia remains what the U.N. calls one of the worst humanitarian crises in the world. On that morning in May, Dr. Abdi challenged her captors: “What have you done for society?” The thugs stayed a week, leaving only after the U.N. and others advocated on her behalf. Dr. Abdi then, of course, got back to work.
Her lifesaving efforts started in 1983, when she opened a one-room clinic on her family farm. As the government collapsed, refugees flocked to her, seeking food and care. Today she runs a camp housing approximately 90,000 people, mostly women and children because, as she says, “the men are dead, fighting, or have left Somalia to find work.” While Dr. Abdi has gotten some help, many charities refuse to enter Somalia. “It’s the most dangerous country,” says Kati Marton, a board member of Human Rights Watch. “Dr. Abdi is just about the only one doing anything.” Her greatest support: two of her daughters, Deqo, 35, and Amina, 30, also doctors, who often work with her. Despite the bleak conditions, Dr. Abdi sees a glimmer of hope. “Women can build stability,” she says. “We can make peace.”
Source: Glamour
SOMALIA: Children facing the worst, says UN
Armed groups in Somalia have continued recruiting children to fight and engage in piracy, and girls have found themselves facing increasing risk of sexual violence, a senior UN official says.
“In some areas, Al-Shabab leaders are asking parents to give [them] a child. I heard of people hiding their children to escape recruitment,” Radhika Coomaraswamy, the Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General (SRSG) for Children and Armed Conflict, told a news conference on 3 November following a mission to Somalia and the semi-autonomous regions of Puntland and Somaliland.
“Children are expressing the difficulty of living in Mogadishu,” she added. “As they walk past checkpoints they are told your ankles are showing, wear something long. Then later they cross the TFG [Transitional Federal Government] checkpoints and are told they are Al-Shabab due to their [clothing]. It is the reason they are going to Puntland.”
Sexual- and gender-based violence, Coomaraswamy said, was on the increase, according to child protection partners, with fast, quick marriages, killing and maiming of concern. “These young boys [fighters] are marrying young girls, and then moving on to others – forced marriages are making a comeback,” she said.
A nine-year-old girl told Coomaraswamy: "My greatest fear, besides thieves, is that men will come and do violence to women and girls in the night."
Coomaraswamy said she had not had access to the Al-Shabab and Hisbul Islam militia, but urged states with an influence on the parties to call for the release of children in their ranks. She expressed concern over the use of radio and schools to recruit children in militia-controlled regions.
The Special Representative also said children were held alongside adults as pirates in Bosasso Central Prison. "The adults are not separated from the children and there are complaints of abuse," she said. "The frontline [pirate] troops now are increasingly children and youth. The big pirates do not go out, they have become businessmen; it is the young children [15-17-year-olds] who are sent out."
Armed groups, she added, were "exploiting [the fact] that children have a less developed concept of death and tend to be fearless fighters. Children are susceptible due to notions of romantic death.”
She said the new Somali Prime Minister, Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed, had pledged to stop the recruitment of child soldiers.
"The government will work with the TFG and allies towards a UN action plan for the release and verification of the release of child soldiers," Coomaraswamy said, adding that some released children were already in the African Union Mission to Somalia (AMISOM) camp in Mogadishu.
She said there were two schools of thought regarding TFG recruitment of child solders - one that the TFG-proper was not doing the recruiting but its allies were, while "others say that even the checkpoints are run by the TFG itself.
“In 2008, I said the African child suffers the most but I think the Somali child suffers even more,” she said.
Source: IRIN
“In some areas, Al-Shabab leaders are asking parents to give [them] a child. I heard of people hiding their children to escape recruitment,” Radhika Coomaraswamy, the Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General (SRSG) for Children and Armed Conflict, told a news conference on 3 November following a mission to Somalia and the semi-autonomous regions of Puntland and Somaliland.
“Children are expressing the difficulty of living in Mogadishu,” she added. “As they walk past checkpoints they are told your ankles are showing, wear something long. Then later they cross the TFG [Transitional Federal Government] checkpoints and are told they are Al-Shabab due to their [clothing]. It is the reason they are going to Puntland.”
Sexual- and gender-based violence, Coomaraswamy said, was on the increase, according to child protection partners, with fast, quick marriages, killing and maiming of concern. “These young boys [fighters] are marrying young girls, and then moving on to others – forced marriages are making a comeback,” she said.
A nine-year-old girl told Coomaraswamy: "My greatest fear, besides thieves, is that men will come and do violence to women and girls in the night."
Coomaraswamy said she had not had access to the Al-Shabab and Hisbul Islam militia, but urged states with an influence on the parties to call for the release of children in their ranks. She expressed concern over the use of radio and schools to recruit children in militia-controlled regions.
The Special Representative also said children were held alongside adults as pirates in Bosasso Central Prison. "The adults are not separated from the children and there are complaints of abuse," she said. "The frontline [pirate] troops now are increasingly children and youth. The big pirates do not go out, they have become businessmen; it is the young children [15-17-year-olds] who are sent out."
Armed groups, she added, were "exploiting [the fact] that children have a less developed concept of death and tend to be fearless fighters. Children are susceptible due to notions of romantic death.”
She said the new Somali Prime Minister, Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed, had pledged to stop the recruitment of child soldiers.
"The government will work with the TFG and allies towards a UN action plan for the release and verification of the release of child soldiers," Coomaraswamy said, adding that some released children were already in the African Union Mission to Somalia (AMISOM) camp in Mogadishu.
She said there were two schools of thought regarding TFG recruitment of child solders - one that the TFG-proper was not doing the recruiting but its allies were, while "others say that even the checkpoints are run by the TFG itself.
“In 2008, I said the African child suffers the most but I think the Somali child suffers even more,” she said.
Source: IRIN
Sunday, 29 August 2010
Life and death on the streets of Somalia -
Saturday, August 28, 2010
In a city where so much time and energy is spent on killing, few people have saved more lives this year than Hassan Mohamoud Mohamed, a driver who traded his taxi for an ambulance in war-torn Mogadishu. When the muffled blast of a mortar round echoes in the distance or the thunder of artillery fire erupts, Hassan gulps his cup of tea and stares at his mobile phone. He knows a call is minutes away. "The days I would wait for western tourists at Mogadishu airport are long gone," said the 51-year-old, propped against his beat-up Toyota minivan. Three years of fighting between Islamist insurgents and pro-government forces have turned central Mogadishu into a death trap where civilians are wounded or killed almost daily. "Now I pick up my clients from pools of blood in shattered homes," he said. "Needless to say, they don't pay the fare." His pay is three dollars a day, barely enough to feed him and his family.
"It's not an ordinary job but I'm like everyone else in this city when I fear for my life every day," he said. "But there is nothing else to take in Mogadishu, so I figured this place needs people who help just for the sake of helping." Typical was one recent morning in the Hamarweyn district. Hassan's phone rang; he quickly answered. "Oh, my God! Where and how many victims?" He flapped his hand at the loud crowd in the nearby tea shop as he struggled to make out the crackly directions given by the caller. Within seconds, Hassan and his yellow-and-white-striped ambulance hurtled through Mogadishu's ruined streets, siren blaring. "Most of the time, I have a really tough time getting to the scene of the incident without getting killed myself," he said, tugging the wheel to steer the speeding van past a rut. He's only half joking. The two previous drivers of his ambulance were killed doing their job.
Militia manning rogue checkpoints, artillery fire, trenches and cement boulders are just some of the obstacles he has to contend with. "The roads are rough, sometimes they're blocked, so you need to know all the shortcuts. You have to keep in mind that you are not driving healthy passengers. Their survival depends on how clever you are," he said. For Hassan, who has no medical training, the hard part begins when he reaches the wounded and has to identify who has a chance of surviving and needs his services the most.
"This is voluntary ambulance service," he said. "Can you imagine driving this vehicle and having to choose the most urgent cases without any medical assistance? "Sometimes people die in my van on the way to hospital and nobody will know the reason. They get their first treatment only when I reach the hospital." After Mogadishu sank into chaos following the 1991 ouster of president Mohamed Siad Barre, pushcarts and wheelbarrows became the main medical emergency transport.
In 2008, volunteers set up the ambulance service with the help of Mogadishu-based telecommunications company Nation Link.
There are six other drivers like Hassan in Mogadishu, ready to bring the wounded to the city's three hospitals.
Ali Muse Sheikh Mohamoud, the head of Mogadishu ambulance services, said his drivers brought more than 700 wounded to Medina Hospital in July alone and appealed for more help.
"We want to have medical staff on board the ambulances in order to give more attention to the victims before they reach hospital," he said.
"But all this is done on a voluntary basis, there is not much more we can do. Yet fighting has become the norm, there are clashes every day." There are no reliable casualty figures for the fighting in Mogadishu but thousands die each year, caught in the crossfire of the never-ending battle for control of the capital.
Hassan moved his wife and eight children out of their home as the fighting got more intense in northern Mogadishu a few months ago; the last thing he wants is to be called to rush a relative to hospital. Dealing with strangers is tough enough.
"For months now, this ambulance has been my home," he said. "Waiting for bad news is my life."
Source: AFP
In a city where so much time and energy is spent on killing, few people have saved more lives this year than Hassan Mohamoud Mohamed, a driver who traded his taxi for an ambulance in war-torn Mogadishu. When the muffled blast of a mortar round echoes in the distance or the thunder of artillery fire erupts, Hassan gulps his cup of tea and stares at his mobile phone. He knows a call is minutes away. "The days I would wait for western tourists at Mogadishu airport are long gone," said the 51-year-old, propped against his beat-up Toyota minivan. Three years of fighting between Islamist insurgents and pro-government forces have turned central Mogadishu into a death trap where civilians are wounded or killed almost daily. "Now I pick up my clients from pools of blood in shattered homes," he said. "Needless to say, they don't pay the fare." His pay is three dollars a day, barely enough to feed him and his family.
"It's not an ordinary job but I'm like everyone else in this city when I fear for my life every day," he said. "But there is nothing else to take in Mogadishu, so I figured this place needs people who help just for the sake of helping." Typical was one recent morning in the Hamarweyn district. Hassan's phone rang; he quickly answered. "Oh, my God! Where and how many victims?" He flapped his hand at the loud crowd in the nearby tea shop as he struggled to make out the crackly directions given by the caller. Within seconds, Hassan and his yellow-and-white-striped ambulance hurtled through Mogadishu's ruined streets, siren blaring. "Most of the time, I have a really tough time getting to the scene of the incident without getting killed myself," he said, tugging the wheel to steer the speeding van past a rut. He's only half joking. The two previous drivers of his ambulance were killed doing their job.
Militia manning rogue checkpoints, artillery fire, trenches and cement boulders are just some of the obstacles he has to contend with. "The roads are rough, sometimes they're blocked, so you need to know all the shortcuts. You have to keep in mind that you are not driving healthy passengers. Their survival depends on how clever you are," he said. For Hassan, who has no medical training, the hard part begins when he reaches the wounded and has to identify who has a chance of surviving and needs his services the most.
"This is voluntary ambulance service," he said. "Can you imagine driving this vehicle and having to choose the most urgent cases without any medical assistance? "Sometimes people die in my van on the way to hospital and nobody will know the reason. They get their first treatment only when I reach the hospital." After Mogadishu sank into chaos following the 1991 ouster of president Mohamed Siad Barre, pushcarts and wheelbarrows became the main medical emergency transport.
In 2008, volunteers set up the ambulance service with the help of Mogadishu-based telecommunications company Nation Link.
There are six other drivers like Hassan in Mogadishu, ready to bring the wounded to the city's three hospitals.
Ali Muse Sheikh Mohamoud, the head of Mogadishu ambulance services, said his drivers brought more than 700 wounded to Medina Hospital in July alone and appealed for more help.
"We want to have medical staff on board the ambulances in order to give more attention to the victims before they reach hospital," he said.
"But all this is done on a voluntary basis, there is not much more we can do. Yet fighting has become the norm, there are clashes every day." There are no reliable casualty figures for the fighting in Mogadishu but thousands die each year, caught in the crossfire of the never-ending battle for control of the capital.
Hassan moved his wife and eight children out of their home as the fighting got more intense in northern Mogadishu a few months ago; the last thing he wants is to be called to rush a relative to hospital. Dealing with strangers is tough enough.
"For months now, this ambulance has been my home," he said. "Waiting for bad news is my life."
Source: AFP
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