Somalia: "Too poor to escape the fighting"

Fadumo Mohamed Hassan and her seven children are among the few families left in Yaaqshid district of north Mogadishu, after worsening conflict forced most residents to flee the capital. Hassan told IRIN on 6 January she could not leave because she lacked the money to transport her family. "I cannot even afford the 2,000 shillings [about US$0.07] bus fare within the city," she said. Hassan's family and about 200 others are the only ones left in Yaaqshid, once one of the most populous areas of Mogadishu, according to Hassan Mahamud, a local journalist and former resident of the district. He said most of the remaining families were headed by women or comprised mainly elderly people. "There are no men left here. They all escaped the fighting," he said. Hassan said young men of fighting age had all left the area for fear of being killed by one of the parties to the conflict. She told IRIN that every morning she went to the nearest market "to wash clothes, carry goods or resell charcoal to be able to buy enough to feed the children. Sometimes I get enough to buy food for the night; sometimes what I get is not much - it depends on how many people hire me." She said the remaining neighbours had become close and looked out for each other, "but still suffer due to the constant fighting. One day we have the Muqawama [resistance], the next day the government and the Ethiopians. It is a very difficult situation but wherever you go it is the same. Mogadishu has become hell and hell does not have a cool place," she said. Mariam Mohamed, a mother of one, is another resident of Yaaqshid who has stayed behind. "My husband left eight months ago after he was almost killed and I don't know whether he is alive or dead," she said, adding that she survived on donations from neighbours. "Sometimes people share what little they have." On occasion, she only had boiled maize husks to eat. Mohamed said she was unable to leave because she did not know where to go and did not have any money. "At least here I don't have to pay rent. "I hear that people in the camps are paying rent to live under trees." Most of the residents did not have enough to eat and lacked access to safe drinking water and medical care, the journalist said. He said Yaaqshid had become one of the most contested areas in Mogadishu. "There is hardly a day that fighting does not take place." Hassan said that because they were scattered over a large area, sometimes they would find someone who had died in their home. "There are so many shells landing that we sometimes find a neighbour who died the night before," she said. "This is the life we have been reduced to."