Watch
Martin Fletcher's reports from Mogadishu
Said Muhammad Abukar, a mere 40 days old, lay grey and trembling on an
operating table in Madina hospital. His tiny stomach was slit down the
middle. Doctors were searching for shrapnel in his abdomen. There was a
large hole in his lower back.
Muhammad Abukar Ahmed, Said’s distraught father, told The Times that
eight members of his family had been about to flee from war-torn Mogadishu
when a shell hit their house in the residential area of Mahad Alab. The
building was destroyed. It took Mr Ahmed, 25, a teacher of the Koran, 15
minutes to dig himself out of the rubble. “I didn’t know if I was going to
live, let alone my son,” he said.
In the past month Ethiopian troops supporting Somalia’s deeply unpopular
Government have pounded residential areas controlled by insurgents. The
civilian death toll has reached four figures. Thousands more have been
maimed and injured. An estimated 320,000 inhabitants — nearly a third of
Mogadishu’s population — have fled in terror.
In five days spent in and around a city reverberating with the constant thud
of mortars and bursts of gunfire, The Times saw burnt-out slums, huge
refugee encampments, hospitals overflowing with the sick and injured, and
enough misery to last a lifetime.
It is hard to overstate the suffering of this forgotten country. Last year
Somalia tasted peace for the first time in 15 years of bloody civil war when
the Islamic Courts movement drove out the warlords who had made their
country a byword for anarchy and mayhem. But Washington saw the Courts as a
new Taleban sympathetic to al-Qaeda, so it conspired with neighbouring
Ethiopia to remove them as part of its War on Terror.
In December Ethiopia’s formidable army routed the Courts, and installed a
Somalian “transitional federal government” that includes some of the very
warlords the Courts had ousted, and depends for its survival on thousands of
soldiers provided by Somalia’s oldest and most bitter enemy. The new
Government is now battling against a growing insurgency, and legions of
petrified Somalis are caught in the crossfire.
On our first afternoon in Mogadishu we were interviewing doctors at the Madina
hospital when we heard explosions. Minutes later a convoy of cars, minibuses
and trucks began delivering men, women and children — all civilians — with
blood pouring from shrapnel wounds.
They were carried, wailing and moaning, into the casualty centre on trolleys,
in people’s arms, in crude stretchers fashioned from blankets. They were
laid on tables and the lino floor, soaked in their own blood and vomit. The
doctors and nurses were soon struggling to cope, sweat coursing down their
faces as they bandaged wounds and rigged up intravenous drips in the intense
heat. But still the injured came — 30, 40, 50 of them. Amid the
pandemonium a man with a stick fought to restrain a mob of frantic relatives.
Survivors said Ethiopian troops had fired three shells into a market in a
neighbourhood called al-Barakah packed with women buying fresh milk. A dozen
were killed outright.
The Government says the Ethiopians are responding to insurgent attacks, and
that it has warned civilians to leave the insurgent-held areas of Mogadishu.
But such horrors have become commonplace, and some European diplomats
believe the Government and its Ethiopian backers could be committing war
crimes.
In the past few days Ethiopian shells have hit a mosque, a minibus, a hospital
and HornAfric, Somalia’s leading independent radio station. One night alone
73 people were killed in northern Mogadishu, and in three days last weekend
the Madina treated 245 wounded civilians.
The casualties fill its foetid wards, corridors and overflow tents, and lie
under trees outside. They are people like Ruqio Muse, a 22-year-old mother
of three young children who said her thigh was shattered by an Ethiopian
sniper’s bullet as she retrieved goods from her clothing stall in one of the
city’s battlegrounds. Next to her lie two semi-comatose girls — 16-year-old
cousins — whose skin was burnt from their faces by a landmine explosion.
Ahmed, 14, has had a leg amputated.
Saida Ali Muhammad, 40, had fled Mogadishu with her children but returned to
sell milk when she was hit by shrapnel in both legs. “This is shameful,”
said her uncle, Farah Rage, as he tried to cool her with a fan. “We are in
the middle of two crazy groups, one calling themselves insurgents and the
other saying they’re the Government. Both are in concrete buildings so it’s
the civilians who die.” Hussein Dhere, the hospital’s despairing deputy
director, said his staff were working round the clock and “if this lasts
another ten or twenty days we can’t cope. I feel very sorry. Sometimes I’m
angry. Our people are dying.”
We had first visited Mogadishu early last December, five months after the
Courts ousted the warlords, and found a city still rejoicing. Gone were the
ubiquitous checkpoints where the warlords’ militias killed, extorted and
stole. Gone were their “technicals” — Jeeps with heavy machineguns mounted
in the back. Hundreds of Somalis were returning from foreign exile,
businesses were reopening, and for the first time in a generation people
could walk around safely amid the ruins of their once-fine capital, even at
night.
The Courts’ leadership undoubtedly contained Islamic extremists with dangerous
connections and intentions. They banned the narcotic qat, cinemas, Western
music and dancing. But the Courts also achieved the almost impossible task
of imposing order on one of the world’s most dangerous cities, and for that
most Somalis were content to accept their strict Islamic codes.
Today Mogadishu is a warzone once again. The crowds and traffic have melted
from the streets. Schools, businesses, roadside stalls and even orphanages
have closed. We were the only whites and foreign journalists in the capital,
and the first guests in our hotel for three weeks. We had just nine fellow
passengers on the only air-line that still dares to fly into the city, and
beside the runway stood the wreck of a military transport plane hit by an
insurgent rocket.
An estimated 20,000 Ethiopian troops are battling against the insurgents — an
alliance of Islamic Court fighters and elements of Mogadishu’s dominant
Hawiye clan who control much of the outer city. The Government’s own army
consists of barely 5,000 “soldiers” — former members of the warlords’
militias who inspire fear, not confidence. They man checkpoints and stand on
corners in central Mogadishu, flaunting their semi-automatics. Many chew
qat. Some steal and extort (we twice had to pay bribes at checkpoints).
Terrified of insurgent attacks, they remove women’s niqabs — Islamic head
coverings — so they can see who is underneath.
In December we could move freely around the city, but not now. This time we
avoided main roads, used vehicles with tinted windows, and travelled with
several bodyguards. Like most inhabitants of Mogadishu, we retreated behind
our hotel’s steel gates well before dark. But one day we slipped into the
insurgent stronghold of north Mogadishu through the sort of labyrinth of
muddy back alleys that thwarted the US rescue effort when two Black Hawk
helicopters were shot down over Mogadishu in 1993.
Beyond the green line the streets were almost deserted except for young
fighters bristling with guns, technicals carrying rocket-launchers, and men
left behind to guard the homes of families that have fled.
On Industrial Road, a major thoroughfare, we were shown trenches and
barricades built to obstruct Ethiopian tanks, burnt-out Ethiopian vehicles,
and the charred remains of both a charcoal market and a camp for 1,200
homeless families shelled by the Ethiopians.
More than 50 died as fire raged through the camp’s rickety shelters made of
wood and plastic sheeting. All that remains is an expanse of ash littered
with the blackened remains of cooking pots, lamps and corrugated iron. “My
family fled to the countryside,” said Hussain Ibrahim Yusef, a young boy
standing alone in the devastation. “We were separated. I don’t know where to
follow them.”
Another day we drove south from Mogadishu towards Afgoye. The refugee camps
started about ten miles out and went on and on — thousands upon thousands of
families who are living out in the bush beneath orange tarpaulins or in the
open, sheltered from the blazing sun and torrential rainstorms only by trees.
These people fled with little more than sleeping mats and the clothes they
wore. Food is scarce. Vendors charge extortionate prices for water, so some
refugees are drinking from dirty rivers. There is no sanitation, and relief
efforts are hampered by the lack of security, poor infrastructure and
harassment by government soldiers.
We found 1,865 families — perhaps 10,000 people — packed into the 59-acre
(24-hectare) grounds of the Lafole Hospital alone. Hawa Abdi, 60, the doctor
who runs the hospital with her daughter, said children there were suffering
from dysentery.
One adult and four children had died. Pregnant women were suffering
miscarriages. Supplies were running out. “We need peace. We need help,” she
beseeched.
We also found the new makeshift premises — a few corrugated iron shacks — of
the Hayat hospital and nursing school which we had visited in Mogadishu last
December. Abdirahman Figi, the hospital chief, said the Ethiopians had
shelled it, stolen its money and medicines, then commandeered it for
barracks. He said thousands of refugees were at risk from the onset of the
rainy season and then winter. “The Islamic Courts brought peace and we were
happy,” he said. The new Government was “worse than the warlords”.
In five days we spoke to scores of ordinary Somalis. Overwhelmingly they
loathed a government they consider a puppet of the hated Ethiopians. “As
long as the Ethiopians are on Somali soil the insurgents will get support,”
said Muhammad Ibrahim, a gardener now living with his wife and three
children at the Lafole hospital. “In the six months the Islamic Courts were
here, less than 20 people lost their lives through violence. Now that many
die in ten minutes,” said Hussein Adow, a businessman waiting outside the
Madina hospital.
The Ethiopians had closed the main road back to Mogadishu, so we took a deeply
rutted dirt track through the bush. We saw columns of black smoke rising
above the distant city, and passed countless vehicles struggling southwards
with yet more refugees.
Back in the capital we visited another hospital, the Benadir, and saw some of
the most harrowing scenes of all. There were no beds. In one bare room after
another the concrete floors were covered with emaciated children lying on
filthy rugs, tended by desperate mothers. There were 700 of them, most under
5, all suffering from dysentery and cholera contracted in the refugee camps.
Nowhere in Somalia is safe any more.
Rise and fall of the Islamic Courts
Mid-1990s Union of Islamic Courts (UIC), a group of local courts,
gained popular support by beating corruption and bringing order
March-May 2006 Worst violence in almost a decade between rival militias
June UIC militias seize Mogadishu from warlords. US fears region could
fall under the sway of al-Qaeda
September UIC and Government begin peace talks in Khartoum
December From its base in Baidoa the Government, backed by Ethiopia,
fights with Islamists and drives them from Mogadishu
January 2007 US attacks suspected al-Qaeda positions in southern
Somalia. Islamists abandon last stronghold, port town of Kismayo
March African Union peacekeepers arrive
April 320,000 Somalis have fled Mogadishu since February, UN says
Source: Times archives
I'm an aid worker. Not much upsets me anymore. This upsets me.
Georgina Newman, Auckland, New Zealand
It is very refreshing to hear the truth about Somalia from Martin Fletcher - a stark contrast with the BBC's Martin Plaut's most convoluted disinformation we have had to endure for a very long time. A tale of two Martins!
Please keep up the good work, Martin Fletcher!
Alison Kendall, New York, USA/NY
It's a tragedy what's happening in Somalia. This TFG is using the worng methods by shelling civilian areas. But it is hardly alone in that. These 'insurgents' are lobbing mortars and shells back. In a confict like this - there is more than one culpable side. Sadly - here we have one side presented as heroic and the other side as evil incarnate. Such simplistic renderings hardly do your readers a service.
VM, Canada,
Thanks Mr Fletcher, your article may help the whole world to see the truth on the ground and the human misery caused by Ethiopian forces on Somali civilians at Mogadishu. Ethiopia is poor country and they can barely feed their people and the question is who could they carry out such huge military campaign? could they inflict this misery on Somalis without the help of USA? Somalis are victims of American inspired mass murder, would anyone care to investigate this? My worst fear is the looming human disaster if the so called government and Ethiopians continuie to block international help to reach the internal displaced civilians. Will the world start reacting when internation TV pictures is filled on dying children and starving nation? The question many of us are asking themselves is where is the human rights principals preached by western world?
Awale, Sydney q, Australia
What Bush adminstration is doing is against everything that is American;decent, caring and helpfull.
thanks for your good reporting.
Abdullahi, Minneapolis, USA
Mr. Fletcher, Thanks for your courage and integrity in telling the story as you witnessed it. Unfortunately this kind of coverage has become increasingly rare. Inspite of the fact that thousands of innocent Somali are being butchered, close to half a million forced to flee their homes, and all the sufferings the people of somalia are going through, hardly any media outlet in the US have mentioned it. This can not simply be dismissed as the scant reporting allocated to African issues by the US media. It is undoubtedly a result of collaboration between the Bush administration and the media giants. If this is not terrorism, I don't know what is!
Frank Upshaw, Oakland, California
It is very unfortunate that Mr. Bush, Jedayi Frazer and the alike do not have an eye to the suffering of ordinary people. If crime was measured by the shear magnitude of suffering and death brought to people, by any leader regardless of the motivation, Saddam Husein will fair much better than the US administration. Saddam has killed thousands of people over the tens of years to protect his power. The US has caused the killing of tens of thousands and suffering to millions of people in just few years for reasons that are bogus and no one can comprehend. Somalia and possibly Eritrea are becoming the victims of this crazy leadership under the pretext of Terrorism. Look at the Somali War lords and Ethiopian rulers, they use of the word “terrorists” in every sentence and abuse the paranoia of the Bush administration to prolong their stay in power. American people need to wake up and correct what is going wrong...
Mulugheta, Seattle, USA
Had the Bush administration sought lasting peace there were numerous opportunities for the TFG and ICU to negotiate, and the US Admin could have pressured both parties, but certainly it has shown it prefers violence and bombs.
The silence of the international community to the death, rape, and starvation of my country is a conspiracy against the Somali people. Shame on you all.
Somali Lady, London , uk
The USA tries to be the policeman of the world, but we only need to look at the chaos in Somalia to see that the USA is a corrupt policeman looking out for their own interests over those of the helpless that a policeman should be protecting.
Rachel, Chch, NZ
By the way your article is being plagerized and twisted in a way that you seem to blame the Ethiopians for the misery in Mogadisho on the "Ethiopian Review" website. Check it yourself. It is unprofessional and illegal.
abate, new york, nY, USA
If Somalia was left to her devices, we would have found a way. My family members have returned from Europe to live in Somalia before the Courts came into power. They have enjoyed stability and peace when the Courts were in power. Now they are in Afgoye with their kids and nowhere to contact them or even send money. Mr Fletcher has also seen the stark difference of how the Courts rules Mogadishu and how the TFG are failing spectacularly. No one from Mogadishu will ever trust the TFG again. And why would they when they have bombed civilians back to dark ages. As they say, the proof is in the pudding. Mr Fletcher is only reporting what he witnessed over his two trips to Mogadishu. He is not making it up and you really do not to understand how Somalis operate in order to report the carnage one sees in front of him.
So once again, Congrats to Mr Fletcher for telling the world how terrible it is for the poor Somalis in that part of the country.
Sagali Ali, London, UK,
Thank you Mr. Fletcher, for showing the real face of the war.
It's terrible how people can justify the murder of thousands of civilians, all in the name of War on Terror. Bush administration chose to install an unpopular coalition of warlords (TFG) just because they don't like IUC's idelogy of Islam. Heh, it was US support for the warlords in June 2006 that actually boosted the public support for IUC in the first place.
Thousands of deads? Displacement of one third of the population? Doesn't matter to them. They just make sure they install the 'right' government. That's all what they care about.
Petunjuk, Surabaya, Indonesia
What is happening in Somalia is a real tragedy. The Bush administration under the guide of Jedayi Frazer has gone to bed with dictators such as Meles Zenawi who is accused of serious human rights violations, and also supported a TFG who never had any legitimacy in Somalia to begin with. By suppressing the wishes of the Somali people especially those in the capital, and letting war crimes perpetuators go un-punished, the Bush administration, has given a blank check to one of Africa's biggest dictators, and supported another who wants to imitate the Ethiopian despot and turn Somalia into Melese Zenawi's Ethiopia. History will not be kind to the Bush administration and as Somalia burns once again the world watches helplessly as Bush’s ‘nation-breaking’ operation goes once again in full swing
ali, mankato,, MN USA
The events in Somalia have nothing to do with fighting "terrorism" but with supporting a corrupt pro-US government in Somalia. The Islamic Courts had nothing to do with "terrorism" and no U.S. government has ever proven of any links to Al-Qaeda. Just like Bush lied about the Saddam-Al-qaeda connection, the U.S. government lied again.
Madison, Savannah, GA
The administration of the United States, at the highest level, is knowingly condoning, (by a clear refusal to take the necessary action to prevent), the murder of innocent civilians. It matters not which country these innocent people reside within. Nor does it matter that others within those nations have decided to return that war with one of their own. You are not permitted to murder innocent civilians, encourage the murder of innocent civilians, or in any way condone such murder and turn a blind eye without being as implicated as the man that pulls the trigger. That was clearly set out in International law by the tribunal set up by the allies to try the German administration at the end of the Second World War. Those that knowingly stand back and refuse to take action to so prevent these murders are as guilty as the perpetrators and must be brought to account for their inaction. That is the rule of law of a civilized nation. Sadly, Those rules have been abandoned by the United States
Chris Coles, Medstead, Alton, United Kingdom
The Islamic Court Movement brought "peace" to Somalia (=Mogadishu)! Wow! Thank you for your knowingly judgement on this movement! And the Goverment is "worse than warlords"! Wow! And "Sharia" is good for people when they are black - isn't it? And the West is... what? Thank you TIMES I'll tell my wife she was all wrong about Somalia and the Islamic Court Movement. Simply misguided by her relatives (Somalies) who escaped from islamic terror. Thank you Mr Fletcher you shed light to the truth. Thank you TIMES for your highly qualified reports on Somalia. We appreciate...
Dirk R Bode, Hamburg, Germany,
it is funny how after forgeting the misery in mogadishu for so many years, journalists like this dude talk about disaster now .
if it wasn't for the government ruling now, even this journalist would be shot killed just like the US forces in black hawk down. the liberals trying to use this against the Bush adminstration are trying to say since we were able to securley roam around in somalia for the FIRST time, the current humanitarian crisis STARTING TODAY must have started TODAY! pathetic. according to them somalia was in ecstasy and in happiness before the TFG.
by the way, what were jihadist islamists based in JUST Hawiye regions going to do about the rest of 70% somalia. kiss them?? we have seen how islamists pushed out somalis in kismayo town (the first refugee issue under them) do we really think the more powerful Puntland/Baidoa/somaliland region would just desert somalia for islamists?? LOL i will give more real, historical analysis instead of this ridiculous article..
lemlem, chicago,
The main functions of a jounalist and as well newspapers are to tell the two sides of the story and to seek the truth in an objective manner. As a true Somai who is loyal to his nation and its flage I find this article very flawed in the sense that the author or rather the writer lacks an in depth understandings of the underpinning and the root factors or causes which pushed Somalia and Somalis into a bloody and endless civil war. The number ONE factor is the blind allegiance of the whole Somalis to their clan and subclans, and the the absence to this day of visionary leaders who would lead the Somalis to shore of progress, prosperity and human advancement. Therefore, the war from within us or rather among us is the cause celebre and the ACHILES HEEL of the curren tragedy ongoing in Mogadishu, Somalia. Mind you, The transitional Federal Institution is the light and hope for the ship of the Somali state to reach the peaceful shores of the country's seases and Oceans alike. Plse help
abdi Jama, Minneapolis, MN., U.S.A..
Wow, it only took Fletcher five paragraphs to blame the United States for this. He's slipping.
Jim, Los Angeles, USA
Once again, the Bush administration has inflicted death and destruction in the overthrow of the Union of Islamic Courts via their Ethiopian proxies, which they supplied with weapons for this endeavor. Great. One more advance in their GWOT, global war on terror, which of course will achieve exactly the opposite. Just like Iraq. Is it so hard to understand that we cannot kill and destroy our way to peace? I look forward to Old Atlantic justifying this one.
John, Seattle, USA
Since this age is perhaps the most superstitious age in history and since the person who is the troll causing all the problems in the universe is George Bush, I'll bet in no time at all he will be blamed for the age-old chaos in Somalia. Does anyone study history? Has anyone examined the endless strings of forts, strongpoints, and fortified houses in Somalia and much of the Old World that go back thousands of years. And George Bush caused the fighting? Yeah, sure. (How about an awakended intolerant Islam, one that wants dhimmitude for non-Muslims. BTW, google dhimmitude; your non-Muslim eyes will be opened concerning what is planned for you. It's little like reading Mein Kampf.)
James, Jacksonville, Illinois U. S.
Thank you Mr Fletcher, you shed light to the truth, the ugly face of a proxy war.
Ali, London, UK
Thank you to the Times for a well balanced and informative article. What is happening in Somalia is a shameful tragedy. The Bush government has chosen war over diplomacy. Basically any government is acceptable, whether it be, warlord, murderers, traitors as long as it toes the line. The Ethiopians are used as the cannon to carry out this policy. In Somalia, there is no foreign press, no journalists. The world is in the dark.
So the Ethiopians, can seal the city and then destroy everything inside.
The puppet installed president A/Yusuf was quoted as saying in the press.
''Mr. President since you have announced that yours is a government of peace, and that you will save the public, if you now say we are going to burn everyone (who opposes us) what do you think of that?
A: It is one side that is initiating the fighting. The instigators will be confronted with fighting. If they hide amongst the civilians there will be collateral damage to the civilians.
Thank you George Bush.
Sam , London, UK
Islamic country war and death, so what is new
David morgan, Huizhou ,
This is written up with a distinctive slant, blaming the USA. But what is happening mirrors the Taliban: accept hard line Islamic rule or you will be in for war. The 'insurgency' is clearly fuelled by the attempt to reclaim Somalia for hard line Islam, and Ethtiopia doesn't fancy that at all on its doorstep, and just down from the fanatical Islamist state of Sudan with the murder and mayhem that is causing. The real agenda behind all this is the Arabisation of Africa from North downwards.
Ibn, Haggerston, UK
Mr F is carrying the water for the extremists who conceal themselves behind the general population, is it possible that he is offering his spin on issues other than the conflict in Mogadishu ?.
wpo, warsaw, n.y.
So, if I am reading the article correctly, the unpopular, exiled "government" of Somalia is killing its own citizens in an attempt to take back power?
Jack Thursby, Sheffield,