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The news of a single day is enough to shed light on the incredible
suffering that is going in southern Somalia. On Thursday, March 25th,
the news from Mogadishu was that Sheikh Sharif’s militia destroyed five
hundred shacks and the families who lived in those shacks were left
homeless. The reason that Sheikh Sharif’s militia gave for dismantling
those ramshackle dwellings was that they were built illegally between
Avizione and the airport, and that they also posed a security threat for
the government and the African troops (AMISOM). Sheikh Sharif’s
“government” did not prepare any alternative housing for the people that
they dislocated; they just destroyed their barely livable homes and left
them to fend for themselves. Many of the people whose homes were
destroyed were people who had lived in other areas of town and who had
fled the armed conflict in their original neighborhoods and set up these
shacks as a refuge from the fighting.
Asha Haji Muhammad, one of those rendered homeless by Sheikh Sharif’s
militia gave a searing account of their plight when she told the Voice
of America’s Somali Service (March 25, 2010): “I have 12 kids, their
father has no job, I came from Suqa Xoolaha to Fagax, from Fagax I fled
to Jubbo, I ran from Jubbo to Avizione. Sharif himself told us to leave
areas where there is fighting. Now he is telling us, you got close to
me, get away from me. He himself told us to leave. Both sides [Sharif
and the extremists] reached a deal to wipe out the people, we want the
international community to help us.”
What was the international community’s response to Asha Haji Muhammad’s
plea? It responded by delivering a consignment of weapons and other
military assistance to Sheikh Sharif’s militia on that same day.
Sheikh Sharif’s militia is not the only ones who are tormenting the
civilian population of the south. The Islamic extremists al-Shabaab are
doing their part too. The same day when Sheikh Sharif’s militia were
forcing civilians from their homes, al-Shabaab continued to dig the
graves of well-known and respected Somali Sheiks, pulled out what
remained of their bones and skulls, then destroyed the graves. The
reason al-Shabaab gave for their barbaric and un-Islamic actions was
that by destroying the graves they were stopping the people from
worshipping those sheikhs.
Those are not all the heartbreaking events that took place on that
single day, but they are enough to give a picture of what is going on in
south Somalia in general and Mogadishu in particular, where the people
are caught between the hammer of al-Shabaab and the vise of Sheikh
Sharif. The popular website Dayniile.com said it best: ‘the government
is making people who are alive become refugees, while the opposition is
making the dead become refugees’ (Dawladda oo dadkii noolaa qixinaysa
halka mucaaridkuna reer aakhiraadkii ay qixid ku bilaabeen).
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