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Ambushed in Somalia

Aidan Hartley

Wednesday, 20th February 2008

Aidan Hartley on the Wild Life

As we entered the old city, the heat shimmered off coral towers half reduced to rubble by cycles of war. We had just exited Mogadishu’s presidential palace after a morning’s filming. Gemaal was at the wheel and Duguf rode shotgun. Cameraman Jim and I were in the back chatting.

Then came the bang. Except I recall no ‘bang’, only a shock wave. It sucked the air out of my lungs so hard that I tasted blood in my throat. Through our car’s rear window I saw black smoke and debris enveloping our escort vehicle 30 metres behind. ‘There’s wounded,’ said Jim. Gunfire erupted. Everybody abandoned the car. As Jim ran towards the blast site whatever he said was lost except for ‘...secondary attack!’

Total confusion. In the back of the escort car I saw one man pulling at a limp body. Nearby, a woman sat in the sandy road. Her right arm was half blown away but she still clutched a can of cooking oil in her left. Two men who might have been talking in the road lay near a crater in the roadside rubbish. One had his guts hanging out. His eyes were open. The other man was panting as blood poured from his chest.

Due to the heat I hadn’t worn a flak jacket. Now I returned to our car and put it on. As the smoke cleared, there was more gunfire. I thought, ‘Now where?’ Bystanders urged me to join them down a side street. I wondered if they might be intending to abduct me. But they just looked scared. In Somalia one rarely sees that, ever, but things are very bad in Mogadishu these days. A boy clutched his foot and cried. I asked, ‘Are you OK?’ He kept on crying.

Walking back to join Jim at the blast area, I met a youth on a bicycle. ‘We want life, not this,’ he said, pointing at the mayhem around him. ‘I don’t care about this fighting. My family is finished. Sorry, my English is broken.’

When I got to Jim I said, ‘It can’t have been for us. It was a mistake.’ But who would ever know. Here, assassins give a kid a mobile phone plus a number to ring — another phone that triggers the bomb — when a target passes. If he hits the right car he gets $50. Standing in a window a block away, he has little idea what he’s hitting. What’s worse is that local phones take seconds to connect. You hear them every day, roadside explosions that kill people who have nothing to do with this war.

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Diana Ngila

March 17th, 2008 1:46pm

Aidan, you never cease to amaze me with your witty, insightful articles. However, the impression one gets at times is you really enjoy being there with all the madness happening around you and you surviving to tell it all in vivid detail....

Amina Osman

May 28th, 2008 2:06am

What are you talking about, Diana Ngila? How on earth can you expect anyone to 'enjoy all the madness' happening in Somalia? He's just doing his job trying to give awareness to whats going on. It's dangerous, he could have died on several occasions! And i wouldn't call that article witty at all. The man i just describing what he's seen.

I doubt there's any chance that you might read this, Hartley, but since i cannot get a hold of your email, i'd like to just say i think this a stupid but very brave thing for you to visit Mogadishu. It's very rare to find any news about Somalia when your living in London and on behalf of me and my entire family, who watched your documentry closely on Channel Four last night, how deeply we appreciate the time, effort and sheer guts it took to go there and film the truth about the sick bloody violance that is crippling our home country.

We only hear about things from our relatives, who live there, over the phone, in numbers and names of who else died today and have to send money directly to them to help. But to me this has always felt like too little. The little we have here to support our many relatives frustrates me and for a long time i've spoken with my cousins to start work on organising something to help aid get into larger areas of Somalia with help of our government and perhaps even the UN.

Your Documentry has made this all the more possible. The awareness that you and your team have given this subject is crucial and for that you deserve a thank you. So Thank you.

By the way, my name is Miss A. Osman. i'm 19 and i've lived in London most of my life after coming with my from From Somalia in the 90's. Since then this is the first real honest footage i have seen of what is happening in Somalia. I have to tell you how much i needed to see that Documentry to make me want to do something even more.

Good luck with the rest of your work. Stay safe.

Diana Ngila

May 29th, 2008 11:24am

Amina Osman, I can understand what you mean coming from your background and being Somali. I'm sorry if my comments pissed you off but you know we're different and my impressions of the article definately vary from yours.

I live in Kenya, right next door and have Somali friends both from here and Somalia and seeing the pictures and hearing of the harrowing tales of the war grieves my heart. I cannot begin to explain to you how much I want peace to be restored in Somalia. Not because there's anything in it for me but because am human and hate to see human suffering... the ubuntu philosophy by Desmond Tutu comes into play here.

Don't get me wrong, I applaud Aidan's work. He's an excellent writer and his book, The Zanzibar Chest inspired me all the more to venture into the field of journalism. Perhaps you should get it; you'll see what I mean. (free marketing for you Aidan so no hard feeling right?!)

Anyway, I love reading your work Aidan and if given an opportunity, I'd love to meet you in person. Of course that's like next to impossible but honestly, you inspire me and all criticism is positive; or so I thought until Amina spoke her mind :-) no pun intended.
Cheers!