Several minutes before I drafted this article, the wheezing sound of an Ethiopian Jet Fighter was heard in Mogadishu and in less than a few seconds a bomb was dropped in the Mogadishu International airport. Then the jet melted in the salty air of the ocean overlooking the airport heading to unknown destination. No body bothered where it had come from or where it had been heading to but everybody switched on his small transistor radio to garner more information from the local FM stations which certainly have reporters in major political and business centers of the city.
As bits and pieces of news trickled down we learned that the at least one woman was injured in the Mogadishu blast and that the horror of bombardment continued in Balidogle military airport some 180 kms south west of Mogadishu. In the background of all these shocking news, we heard that the town of Beletweyne has fallen to the Ethiopian backed warlords after the Islamic courts militia retreated to strategic locations within the region of Hiiraan.
Not only that but the news added that a fleet of tanks started rumbling to the direction of Middle Shabelle region aiming to dislodge the Islamic Courts Union from the town of Jowhar. What a horror! Suppose dear reader, you were in Mogadishu and you have heard all this chilling information, would you wait for the Ethiopians in Mogadishu or would you take up the gun to face the enemy before you see their troops trampling on you and your property? Anyway
Mogadishu will remain united under the bomb if the military engagement stopped and peace negotiations started soon. I think it is high time all factions reverted to peaceful dialogue, no matter how hard the trek may be.
I don't know why the world is pretending to be unaware of what is happening in Somalia? If a bird dies in the suburbs of a European town all the cameras of the world would go there to take pictures of a bird suspected to be carrying a bird flu virus. But in a war raging fiercely inside Somalia between Ethiopians and Somali Islamic militia the international media, with the exception of BBC (both English and Somali sections) has no time to cover adequately of the atrocities taking place in the battle field.
Somalia is partly burning and partly sinking in flood waters and there is little or virtually little humanitarian attention to respond dynamically to the worsening situation of this ill-fated nation. If Somalia had been rich I don’t think the world
Would have sat back and watched Somalis burned with rocket fire or attacked with jet fighters.
In 1992 when the world ignored the war in Somalia and gave tremendous attention to Yugoslav war in the heart of Europe, the then secretary general of the United Nations made a historic shout calling the Yugoslav war as the war of the rich. This statement has diverted the eyes of the world from
Europe to Africa giving hope to the despair ridden heart of an abandoned nation. After 14 years we face the same scenario f neglect by the international community because this is a war of the poor
Statistics show that every minute a child dies in the sub-Saharan Africa. What do you think of a region (the horn) which has been devastated by wars and recurrent famine? Every 30 seconds a woman dies during child birth or a child takes its last breath due to vaccine preventable diseases. An old man is leaving his settlement due to wars and finds himself inside a tent as a displaced person, becoming a consumer, or a dependent on food donations, not anymore a producer.
The paradox is that the world we are calling to intervene is providing huge amounts of money and weapons to both sides of the warring nations and factions as neither side is capable of manufacturing weapons of its own. So who do we blame for these senseless insane wars: Those who give the arms or those who fire the arms! After all it is the people in the horn who are supposed to die in the war. It is our children whose future is gambled on by interest groups. Please share this short poem with me:
Would You Sponsor Me?
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Refugees from the Horn is fed up with the unending wars and political impasse in their respective countries and wish to get resettlement somewhere in the Free World. |
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If I stay in-door I feel cold
I feel chilly and rather desolate
Out in the city market
everything is expensive
and quite unaffordable
My ailing pocket weeps
at the sight of the prices
If I hit the road just to sight-see
Misery will find me somewhere
Police will put chains on me
I have no Kipanda or an ID
I am a Refugee from the Horn
My status can not protect me
If I listen to the world news
Wires transmit shocking events
War grabs major News headlines
Wrangles dominate conferences
Some faction leaders walk out
Shooting starts back home.
No peace in the motherland
No joy in the host nation
A way out is resettlement
Would you sponsor me?
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Abdi-Noor Mohamed
Mogadishu, Somalia
[email protected]