We’ve lost everything twice... all for wars that are nothing to do with us
FORGOTTEN FAMINE: VICTIMS OF CONFLICT
AFTER surviving the machine gun street battles of Mogadishu’s brutal clan war, Mohamed Darman Hassan hoped his luck would change.
Bombed out of his home in Somalia’s capital, the engineer – who studied in Britain in the early 1980s – fled with his family for the sanctuary of Yemen in 1991.
Thousands of other Somalis made the same treacherous journey by boat across the Gulf of Aden.
A quarter of a century later, Mohamed, 56, embarked on the return crossing after being caught in the crossfire of civil war for a second time. The life he had built in Yemen came to an end when helicopter gunships blasted adjoining homes.
Now struggling to survive in an unsanitary camp in the barren desert near the northern city of Garowe, the dad-of-four is destitute as Somalia teeters on the brink of famine.
Mohamed clutches his prized laminated diploma certificate from Bolton Institute of Technology and a teaching qualification from a college in Bedford.
He says: “I have lost my livelihood, my house, car, friends and everything I own twice because of stupid wars I’ve got nothing to do with.
“One of my children died. “Those Apache helicopters were just swooping down over where we lived in Aden and dropping bombs. We had to go... When I
came back from England to Mogadishu I got a job in the sugar cane industry. In Yemen I had a decent salary working in the fishing industry.
“Look at it here; it is filthy. There is no toilet, no running water, no medicines or healthcare, no food.
“Cholera is spreading because we have to drink disgusting, dirty water next to the open sewer.”
At least 2,000 refugees have recently made that dangerous boat trip from Yemen and arrived in this slum which was already overcrowded. Each family has a similar tragic story. The ongoing Somali Civil War began in 1991 when the president was overthrown.
Somalia became a failed state – even now al-Shabaab terrorists control swathes of the country.
The Yemeni Civil War started in 2015, creating a hunger crisis as bad as the one now unfolding in Somalia.
Islamic State and al-Qaeda are also in this drought-stricken region.
The conflict in Yemen has prompted many to pay the equivalent of £50 to traffickers to get in a cramped boat for the 150-mile journey to Somalia. Abdalle Mohamud, 38, was a dad-offour a few months ago when he and his family set sail from Yemen.
Three of his children died when the ship capsized in rough seas.
Abdalle and the two-year-old boy in his arms, Abdurahman, were the only survivors from his family. “When I think of what happened to us I am so angry,” the dad says here in Garowe.
“We have been left behind by the world. Those boats were so unsafe – there were 300 families on ours. You could feel it wobbling dangerously in the winds, but there was no choice. The bombing was constant. I saw seven people die from the building next to mine.
“It was a case of being killed for sure in Yemen or risk the crossing to get here. Me and Abdurahman don’t feel lucky now. This place is desperate. “I’m worried about losing him too
because so many children are dying from hunger and disease.” Outside the shack where we talk, a group of women are in the 40C noon heat with their exhausted kids.
Sahra Dahir, 38, says: “My husband died in Yemen. He had been thinking we should come back here, so after we buried him I came with our children.
“This should be a new start, but it does not feel like that.”
The thousands here are fearful of travelling south towards al-Shabaab’s stronghold. Mogadishu, where most of the refugees are from, is one of the world’s most dangerous cities.
Some of those spat out by Somalia and Yemen say they are ready to make the long journey to Europe. It seems absurd. But who can blame them?