What Have We Done to Deserve This?

[Tahliil]

SOMALIA: "What have we done to deserve this?"

 

Fadumo Ahmed, a 20-year-old mother of two, fled the fighting in the Somali capital in May and now lives in the village of Burbishaaro, 20 km north of Mogadishu, along with about 400 other displaced families.

 

Home for Fadumo and her children, aged two- and three-years, is a hut measuring one and half metres by one metre. The hut is made of twigs, torn clothes and plastic, and sits in the baking sun close to the Indian Ocean coast.

 

Until May, Fadumo had been living with her family in Huriwa district, north Mogadishu. Huriwa is considered to be one of the most dangerous areas of the Somali capital, with frequent clashes between insurgents and Ethiopian-backed government troops.

 

"We had a small house in Huriwa and my husband used to get work to feed the family. But we had to leave when it got too dangerous.

 

"There was not a single night when something [fighting] did not happen. Many

people in our neighbourhood were killed by heavy shells or by bullets. It was impossible to do anything. If you came out of your house someone shot you, [and] if you stayed in you could still be killed.

 

"One day there was a heavy exchange of gunfire near us and a friend's house was destroyed. We decided to leave before it was too late. We came here along with a number of our neighbours. We took what we could carry on our backs, which was not much.

 

"Now this small hut is where we all sleep. It doesn’t even keep the rain out. We have nothing and survive on what my husband can bring when and if he finds work in the city. My husband goes to the city every day to find work, even though it is dangerous.

 

"Sometimes he makes something by carrying people's goods, but often he returns because the security was bad or [he] was stopped by government forces who close down areas. We are lucky if we get one meal a day.

 

"I am worried about my children. They are getting weaker and have started coughing. I would like to go back but it is not possible now with all this fighting.

 

"I don't know what we have done. It is as if we are being punished by God for sins we have committed. I pray that all this will stop and we will have peace and go back to our lives."

 

 

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