- This topic has 1 reply, 2 voices, and was last updated 15 years, 6 months ago by
.
- Posts
(BBC)
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/7651776.stm
Years of conflict in Somalia have left large parts of the country in the hands of warlords while its capital, Mogadishu, is contested by Ethiopian-backed government forces and armed insurgents.
The city has been abandoned by at least half of its residents. The BBC’s World Affairs Correspondent, Mark Doyle, sent this report from a war zone few Western journalists dare to visit.
The bombed-out buildings are shocking enough.
There are street after ruined street of them in the centre of Mogadishu.
Some have been reduced by shellfire to rubble. Others retain a building-like shape – the rough skeletons of once-ornate Italian colonial apartment blocks or shopping arcades.
But the really eerie side to many parts of Mogadishu is the lack of people.
The last 18 months of fighting have seen the population plummet in a way that even the infamous Black Hawk Down year – 1993 – did not achieve.
According to the United Nations, at least half of Mogadishu’s population – perhaps 500,000 people – have fled.
In 1993 a joint United States/United Nations aid effort descended into war. Somali warlords resisted the international force partly because it reduced their racketeering of food aid.
The Americans then fell into the trap of thinking the flip flop-wearing “Skinnies”, as the Marines disparagingly called Somalis, would be a pushover.
However, the “Skinnies” could fight, and fight well. The US and the UN withdrew in disarray.
But even back then – when tracer fire lit up the sky every night – the streets were still full of people.
Not any more. Parts of Mogadishu are now a ghost city.
The new situation has an intensity of street shelling and military atrocities that even this veteran war city has never seen before.
- You must be logged in to reply to this topic.