"They destroyed the grave of Sheikh Ali Ibaar and our mosque. They also knocked down our Islamic university," local elder Hassan Ali told Reuters by telephone from Galhareeri.
"We are now just squatting among the trees on the outskirts of the town. We do not know where to flee." [1]
I hesitate deeply to again involve my web surfing mind and heart in the conflict in Somalia. Abdi Sheikh's Alertnet piece wraps the state of affairs perfectly.
Al Shabaab specifically, perhaps the fighting in general, route villagers from their homes and out into a dreadful unknown that may afford such niceties as the squalid camps for 250,000 souls in Kenya or death by drowning for those who may wander as far as the Arabian Sea with aspirations of fleeing to Yemen.
Producing despair, death and fear, it seems, has turned out much easier for Shabaab than producing life-enhancing and life-sustaining services, most of which become the province of the world's more charitable organizations.
How bad have the fighters made it for their cowed and fleeing brothers and sisters?
Here is an excerpt from a still recent World Health Organization report [2]:
* * *
Assessment of the camps/settlements
The three camps/settlements are supported by the TFG health authorities. Goba 1 and 2 host a total of 333 families, while the Burhan camp hosts an estimated 120 families. (approximately 3000 people in total) Major challenges with different levels of severity in the three IDP camps/settlements include:
- Overcrowding around temporary settlements and water sources
- No fire extinguishers or fire-fighting equipment
- Lack of camp safety
- Insufficient water supply
- No routine sampling of water quality
- Insufficient sanitation facilities and no toilets for people with physical disabilities
- No designated areas for bathing washing, food preparation, food storage and waste disposal (including medical waste)
- Preparation of food occurring in front of tents, often less than a metre from adjacent shelters
- Lack of primary health services (health services are provided by either El Medina or Banadir hospitals)
- Poor environmental and personal hygiene
- No vector control measures in place
The short report's bullets don't stop with that last one.
As one may for the buildings and bunks of WWII-era concentration camp inmates, one may imagine as well a few rows of tents set out in the muck, and even extend that into seeing in the mind's eye a collection of hundreds of tents and 3,000 humans (noted in the above report) struggling with the desolate burdens posed by continuous environmental exposure and complete dependence on the kindness of strangers for the very little they have in their state of dispossession.
How does one feel and see, however, that very same depth of suffering spread across the dismal tide of 1.25 million IDP's and refugees?
I'll leave that question rhetorical, as it must be, but take this one step further to better contemplate how small an invasion force, essentially, has been able to create so overwhelming a tragedy:
Estimates of Shabaab's size vary, but analysts generally agree that the group contains several thousand fighters, many of whom are from the Hawiye clan. The group has been able to expand its footprint in Somalia with relatively small numbers for two reasons: Somalia hasn't had a central government since 1991; and many of the clan warlords that filled the power vacuum have proven willing to cooperate with Shabaab, at least in Somalia's south. Shabaab has engaged in forced recruitment among Somalis, so it's unclear how many members of the group truly believe the organization's ideology. Experts say the number of rank-and-file members is less important than the number of hardcore ideological believers, which could range between three hundred and eight hundred individuals. Foreign fighters have traveled to Somalia to fight with Shabaab, as have Somalis from the United Kingdom and the United States. The FBI says as many as two dozen Somalis have disappeared from Minneapolis in the past two years; FBI director Robert S. Mueller III says one of these individuals was a suicide bomber in an October 2008 attack in Somalia. [3]
Catch the loose count: " . . . several thousand fighters . . . the number of hardcore . . . between three hundred and eight hundred individuals . . . ."
Kenya this day hosts about 250,000 refugees.
Much of Mogadishu has been destroyed and substantial population, a number upwards of a million, has been consigned to camps in the city's region.
One needs must be careful with comparisons with the Holocaust, I know, and here there's no ignoring the world's awareness of and want to alleviate the suffering of displaced Somalis; still, one also looks back at the source of this "human caused disaster", as America's Administration might say with its best Orwellian euphemism for destruction associated with the distribution of Islam's persistent "low intensity" civil wars, and there, once again, are the youth, a different "youth", masked, sometimes uniformed now, brandishing Kalashnikovs, and at the end of each day, currently, tolerated for lack of wherewithal on the part of their victims and the global powers at large.
Reference
1. Abdi, Sheikh. "Shabaab rebels destroy grave and mosque in Somalia." Thompson Reuters Alertnet, October 19, 2009: http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/LJ081539.htm
2. World Health Organization. "WHO Somalia - EHA: Situation of IDP's in Mogadishu and Afgooye Corridor -- inter-agency joint assessment." October 7, 2009: http://www.emro.who.int/somalia/pdf/2009%20September%20Mogadishu%20report.pdf
3. Hanson, Stephanie. "Backgrounder: Al-Shabaab." Council on Foreign Relations, February 27, 2009: http://www.cfr.org/publication/18650/alshabaab.html
4. Human Rights Watch. "Kenya: End Abuse and Neglect of Somali Refugees." March 30, 2009: http://www.hrw.org/en/news/2009/03/29/kenya-end-abuse-and-neglect-somali-refugees. Additional materials available: http://www.hrw.org/node/81794.
5. IRIN. "SOMALIA: Insecurity "no excuse" to neglect IDP's." September 30, 2009: http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=86364
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