Somali Children

Somali children are so beautiful and so sweet. They look at you with curious little eyes wondering from where you are and what you have come for. The moment you make eye contact with these little angels they faces light up and they give you the biggest happiest smile their little faces and parched lips allow them.

It is for me very heartbreaking and I feel so sad as I sit and think about them and all their little smiles run through the memories of my mind.

They are born into and grow up with so much suffering, so much difficulty and so much pain…yes it makes them strong and righteous adults but why should children experience such tragedy from birth ?

When a 20 something year old looks at you and with a smile says to you, this is life it is nothing to grow up in this situation, to them it is ok but to you, you who have played in the sun and know what it feels like to swoosh down a slide or swing as fast and hard as you can to try and touch the sky, it is doesn’t feel okay.

You feel your heart sink to the pit of your stomach and find your eyes facing the floor, swelled with tears, hoping that those around you won’t see. Suddenly your life feels so trivial and insignificant and your achievements seem to not feel like success.

For a Somali child to live to become and adult and to not be maimed or diseased or fatigued by conflict and disaster is success.

For a Somali child lala-byes are the sweet melodies of Quraan, hugs are the comforts of endless hunger and tireless pains, kisses are vaccinations for dying diseases.

At the medical camp we come across a class of kids, probably aged between 3 and 10 sitting together. Singing as hard as their dry little throats will allow, the ayaats of the Quraan. When they notice our attention on them, they build the moment of pride and passion in their recitation.

Somali’s, by and large don’t share the luxury we do of have books and kitaabs and e-catalogues containg everything about hadith and Quraan. For the madressah at this make shift camp the pages of their Quraan are long and broad wooden planks with Surahs hand printed in black.

I pull a 5 year old boy out of the crowd… I want to understand how he views the graveness of their situation. His name is Mohammed Hassan, thankfully both his parents are with him but they too have traveled from far; Baidoa Province west of Mogadishu. His family arrived here after and exhausting Bus ride. I ask him why they came to Mogadishu. With his finger by his lip he looks at me and says in Somali, because of drought and hunger. I ask him if he was scared he slowly shakes his head; NO.

I ask what do you expect it Mogadishu; he answers Hope.

Camp Life

Life at IDP camps is hot and difficult. Every camp we go to is over crowded and everyone is sort of squashed together. They build similar structure homes, but only very tiny versions. We are talking about a family of 5 – 8 sharing a space about 1 square meter in size. They cook on a tiny fire made from a few pieces of wood. A mother wipes her child’s runny nose with a stray plastic on the floor nearby…Al Imdaad’s Molana Imraan sees her and gives her a tissue left in his pocket.

Further down 10 year old Anisu Mohammed is toasting Anjero for her mother. Anjero is a flour water paste which she scoops up from a pot and spreading around in a circle on a flat p0late over the fire, after a few seconds Anisu turns the anjero around by peeling it off the surface with her tiny hand.

Ebrahim is 80 years old, he is skin and bones…… he is too weak to stand for long enough for the the doctor to complete his instruction on how to take the medicine. He has traveled over 200 km, a lot of that could probably have been on foot. He has nothing, absolutely nothing. No worldly possessions at all… but that’s okay. The real pain and tragedy of Brother Ebrahim’s story is that he has absolutely no one left. He is all alone with no one not a single family member. How much can a person endure at such a late stage of their lives ?

At another camp on the other

Everyone at these camps expresses gratitude for the kindness of the world. Without a doubt the assistance that has come to Mogadishu is saving lives every day. Every level of this society expresses gratitude to our convoy and asks us to pass the message on to our people back home. They also say that Allah has brought them the drought and Allah will take them through it.

The Story of Bashir Sheikh Ibrahim Warsame

Bashir is 21 years old, he is our interpretor and guide, he is our friend and protector. Bashir is of the few who are lucky enough not to have become a teen soldier or a security agent. He carries no gun and isnt involved with any conflict or group, it's because every Somali male has a gun; most of them either a rifle or AK 47, that I say he is of the few lucky.

He was born in Bay province, south central Somalia in 1990 so all his life he only knows war. So real is conflict that as recently as a two months ago Bashir would awake in the middle of the night to the thunder of explosions across Mogadishu.

His family was an agricultural family and his village, Mursal, their clan is called Leysaan, they were harrased by the Harbargidir, a clan found north of Baidoa. His most horrific memories is that of Harbargidir murdering, maiming and butchering his tribesmen, friends, cousins and families before his child eyes. He says the stain of blood where his neighbour was killed was on his door step for 1 week.

Eventually his clan with the aid of Ethiopia rebelled, but the tragedy is here my dear friends. Bashir's farther, Sheikh Ibrahim Warsame, was returning from his work in Mogadishu that fateful Sunday morning, they travelled with militias to protect them from bandits along the way.

Leysaan rebels and Ethiopian troops planned to intercept the Harbargidir en route. Instead they came across Bashir's father's group and mistaking them for the enemy, his own people shot at them killing his father.

3 days later Bashir's father was found outside the town under a tree, he had tied his scarf around to reduce the blood flow from the bullet wound to his head , he also sustained two bullet wounds to the abdomen.

He was found holding a Quraan which he was bringing back for the community's masjid.

Bashir was 9 years at the time........

Medical Relief from Al Imdaad

Understanding Somalia

Somalia is a beautiful country and one can imagine how magnificant this city Mogadishu once was. The sad reality is that today it is completely destroyed. The face of buildings across the city is riddled with bullets. in all shapes and sizes...more often you will see that the walls of some of the buildings are crumbled heaps - in fact 90% of Mogadihu is in rubble and I wish that were an exagerration!

There are so many things happening here in the country. The lack of political structure and clan warfare has without a doubt been one of the major contributing factors of famine.

The second factor is the biggest facade that we have all fallen prey to. Somali's have been forbidden from fishing in there own waters, if a Somali fisherman goes deep where the fish are the brand him a pirate, in the meantime there are tons of foreign fishing fleets in Somalia's water raping her seas. There are foreign forces intervening in this country and they are ruining the country with the aim of maintaining the status quo of poverty and deprevation.

It is this poverty and ongoing violence that has prevented Somali's from moving forward and surviving the drought.

Please the next time you see a Somali share with them your love and support these are truely beautiful people who have endured alot of undeserving hardship.

IT has been two days of travelling to both medical and feeding IDPcamps here in Mogadishu. What is quiet apparent is that most of theaffected people have travelled from central Somalia where the drought,ongoing for 2 years, has severely affected and hampered life forSomali's. the conditions are horrific....4 million Somalis areaffected and desperately i need of all kinds of assistance. Food andvaccinations take precedence followed by nutritional supplementation.Alhamdulliah, most people describe a renewed hope thanks to the AlImdaad Foundation. The NGO has embarked on a multilayered approach tothe disaster with a long term 6 month rebuilding campaign. Thechildren at the IDP camps continue madressah and Quraan has beenwritten out on long wooden planks.The contributions from around the world are making a difference andwhile much has bee done there is much more that must still happen.These are primarily women, old people and children that are found atthe IDP camps...things are terrible. We must keep doing. They need usto help

first thoughts

we have reached mogadishu after 24 hours of flying and waiting. thereality of conflict has smacked us in the face. mogadishu isexperiencing its second month of peac but the paranoia of warlingers....Our hosts refuse to let us out of the compound withoutsecurity presence. and we are only allowed to go to those placesdesignated.... security here is former army fighters who now protecttheir people with AK47s....I feel safe and its amazing, but extremely restricting....We dont have internet access so I'm not sure when the next post will be.The people are warm and kind and the work is great. There is so much istill need to share reagarding Al Imdaad and my first 24 hours...willdo that as soon as I am able to ....