Thursday, October 13, 2011

Somali capital slowly returns to life after rebel retreat

Normal daily life reemerges in the Somalian capital Mogadishu following the retreat of the Islamist Shebab fighters.

Old men sip tea while children kick a football on a dusty street in the Somali capital: ordinary scenes of daily life unthinkable just weeks ago, when Islamist Shebab fighters were in control here.

"We came back last month after the Shebab left, because it was not safe before," said Abdulah Abubakr, sitting beside a bullet-scarred building in Mogadishu's northeastern Tawfiq district, a former Shebab stronghold.

"The Shebab would beat us, they would even kill people without questioning, and then there was heavy fighting," added the 70-year-old former truck driver.

After four years of bitter battles, African Union-backed government troops forced the Al-Qaeda linked Shebab to pull out of key positions in August, leaving die-hard rebel pockets on the edges of the city.

"The security is better, because the fighting has mostly stopped," said Sara Adan, a mother of seven, selling camel milk in a small street market.

She returned home to Tawfiq a month ago after fleeing to a government-held district, fearing her teenage boys would be taken as child soldiers by the insurgents.

"They (the Shebab) wanted my sons to fight for them, and I feared we would all suffer if they did not go with them," Adan said.

The Shebab earned a fearsome reputation imposing a hardline version of Sharia Islamic law -- banning Western culture, imposing a dress code on men and women, and restricting the distribution of foreign aid.

Improvements are relative. Mogadishu, at civil war since 1991, remains one of the world's most dangerous capitals, and the UN has declared famine in the camps for desperate families seeking aid that have sprung up across the city.

"Things are very, very far from good in Mogadishu because we have no jobs, no money, no food," said Mohamed Hassan, an unemployed father of six.

Many are fearful of Shebab threats to scale up use of suicide bombers, after the insurgents carried out their worst ever attack in the city last week, killing at least 82 people with a truck loaded with explosives.

Shebab leaders said Wednesday they were sending "hundreds" of gunmen to bolster remaining fighters in Mogadishu's outskirts.

Empty bullet casings lie scattered on the dust, heavily armed soldiers stand at street corners, while pick-up trucks mounted with machine guns patrol the district.

"The Shebab won't stop their attacks, and there is no way to stop people who want to die from exploding themselves," said Ibrahim Kasim, an elderly man.

But the pullout of the Shebab has allowed some areas of the city to return to relatively normal life, and off a small side street, the chanting of children in a tin-shack school can be heard, learning Islamic holy verses.

"People are still scared, because they fear that the Shebab will return," said Abdirahman Mohamed, a soldier with Somalia's weak Western-backed transitional government, working alongside African Union forces.

"But things are getting better, the fighting has calmed down here."

At night, the crackle of gunfire and occasional heavier thump of a mortar round can still be heard, but it is a considerable improvement from earlier this year, when fierce gun battles would regularly rage for hours.

A final push to drive out Shebab diehards in north-east Mogadishu was launched at the weekend by AU forces, with Ugandan troops seizing strategic positions from the rebels.

"Of course there are still problems," said Ugandan Lieutenant-Colonel Kayanja Muhanga, speaking as he led a patrol through the streets without body armour or helmet, something that would have been too dangerous just months ago.

"But we are working hard to secure the areas we have taken from the Shebab to allow people to return to everyday life."

Business is also slowly returning to Bakara market, Mogadishu's commercial heart and scene of some of the strongest Shebab resistance.

Some tower blocks have been left almost unusable after serving as rebel outposts and hit repeatedly by shell and mortar fire, but the market formally reopened last week.

"We are here, ready and waiting for business," said Dahir Hassan, a car mechanic running a street stall fixing punctures, waving at workers at a shop plastering over bullet holes dotted into its wall.

"Things are still quiet, so life is not easy as the work is little, but this is our first week back, so we hope that things will become busier in future," he added.

But while life inside Mogadishu slowly improves, the Shebab are far from beaten -- they still control swathes of southern and central Somalia, and continue to restrict international agencies providing emergency aid.

The United Nations has warned that 750,000 people could die by the end of year unless emergency aid is brought into to the worst-hit areas.

Source: AFP

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