Both parties are still threatening each other and the people are confused; as if the other fighting will take the lives of many other people.
A mission team from GLED Somalia visited the hospitals and the war areas to assess the situation and help those who were still in the war areas without a way to escape.
The GLED team met in Madina Hospital, where a 3 month old young girl called Amina Zahra Moalim, who was seriously wounded in the arms and the stomach was being treated.
The team had an interview with Amina’s Mother, and asked how her infant was victimized. The gloomy mother, crying replies,“The fighting was the misfortune of my daughter, because she was only 85 days into this world. Now she is a victim, and nobody is trying to punish those who harmed my child”, She added that, “the bullets hit her arm and stomach, and I am afraid that she will be mentally retarded because she banged her head on the ground when she bounced from the bed... [due to] the reaction of the missile that destroyed the house”.
Amina’s situation is very critical and she is the youngest victim in the fighting. Her family is very poor: her father is a teacher and her mother kept a small kiosk in front of their house. However, the storms of missiles destroyed their house and wounded Amina, destroying the kiosk in the process.
The perpetrators of the cases like these are members of the transitional federal government (TFG), and want to make the blood of the people like a bridge to reach political positions.
Most of the education sectors are still closed; the people are alert to flee, while more than 180 wounded remain in the hospitals - those the GLED Team visited on Tuesday-Monday.
Ugaso Sharif 23, pregnant mother of two children, was paralysed by bullets in her backbone. She is in a very serious situation, and the doctors told her that they can’t do any thing for her. Ugaso says that, “..A week [before], I was working [for the] survival [of] my kids; but now I am paralysed, and I feel very helpless. I don’t have money to go outside the country, and the doctors told me that they have no way to safe my life”. She adds that, “my house was destroyed, and my children are in [a state of] displacement, while the perpetrators are still announcing another war”.
The situation is very critical; the people are hopeless and the phenomenon has evolved into another war that will destroy the lives of the rest of the people.
The fighting not only affected Amin, but others were extremely affected as well. Elmi Mohamed Ahmed, a 13 year old child who was seriously wounded in the stomach and other parts of his body, but recovered after four hours of surgery, told GLED; “I was preparing to go to school with my younger siblings. Unfortunately, the fighting started; three of us were seriously wounded and my younger sister died”.
Uneasy efforts are maintained by some well-known moderate religious leaders; but still don’t seem to have the means to bring the warring parties together at the same table, as the fighting factions maintain the energy to fight and kill more people without any accountability for thier actions.
Why do the people feel that they are in a dilemma? The people are nervous about the situation that they are facing at moment and that they will face in the future.
Prof. Abdulkader Mohamed Osman, a lecturer at the Somali Institute of Management and Administration Development (SIMAD Institute) in Mogadishu, expresses his anxiety about the future of the country.
Osman says,
“I am worrying how the things are going on; the Sharia courts seem to have defeated the warlords and want to take power in the capital city. If the Islamists succeed to power, the United States may attack Somalia like they did Afghanistan and Iraq, pursuing, allegedly, Alqaeda members. If the warlords succeed, the security will worsen and the killings of innocent people will continue".
Aweis Nur Abukar, Secretary General of the Somali Youth Development Network, in agreeance says, “I don’t believe that one of the rivals will fully succeed, but the result is the massacre of the people and displacement of the rest”. He believes that ,“The international community can send all of them to the International Criminal Court in the Hague, and charge them withwar crimes, because they [have] committed war crimes and violated the arms embargo in the country”.
Anfa Amin, the GLED deputy chairlady says, “as the fighting is going [on], the arms embargo is violated and the gun dealers order new frighting”. She adds that, “If the UN waits more years, these warlords will finsih the people and they will kill like the beasts”.
The Islamists started propaganda, offering CD-Rom video clips about the fighting, edited with some of their aims, which were intended to gain the public opinion in the Cyber-cafés.
Somalia has been without government for a long time; and the people in the country have been the hostages of the guns and gangs since 1991 when the central government was ousted from authority.
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