Ambushed in Somalia
Aidan Hartley on the Wild Life
In Mogadishu as journalists we try to be independent. But to avoid ambushes or kidnap attempts you need a police escort. Our escorts had uniforms. I tried to stop them from wearing them, but it’s the regulation. Then, minutes after the bomb an insurgent commander called a friend. ‘Praise be to Allah,’ he said. ‘We killed two Russians engineers working for the President.’ Local radios picked up the report and it took some work to convince them we were not Russian, not engineers and not dead.
The dead policeman, also with his eyes open, lay in a deep pool of blood. His death must have been instant. A lump of shrapnel had passed through his neck. He had joined us that morning. Nobody knew his name. He was quiet and polite. Only later did we learn he was called Abdi, and had recently married. The escort car was riddled with holes. It was a miracle the other passengers survived.
Armed men surrounded us, angrily shouting and shooting. As we got away, I tried to look through the crowd of soldiers for the wounded civilians. Back at our vehicle was another policeman, blood pouring from his thigh. I held him while we sped towards Medina hospital and tried to cut away his trousers with my knife to look at the wound. Between groans he objected to me vandalising what were probably his only clothes.
A battered taxi carrying the wounded bystanders was a couple of minutes behind us reaching the hospital. The woman with her injured arm entered triage still holding her can of cooking oil. Her name was Faduma and when I later met her she said that she had been on her way home from market to cook lunch for her husband. She was knocked off her feet, and when the smoke cleared she saw her arm in ribbons. In the shade of a neem tree I also later met the man with the chest wound. ‘Mikhail’ said he was in pain. Medina hospital’s doctors, who patch up Mogadishu’s war victims day in, day out, said Mikhail would be left with a chunk of shrapnel in his thorax but he would recover fully. They also saved Faduma’s arm. The policeman with the thigh wound limped back to his base in a couple of days. Weeks later, I often think of the dead men’s open eyes and feel so very sad for Somalia’s people.
More articles from: Aidan Hartley | this section
Post this entry to: del.icio.us | Digg | Newsvine | NowPublic | Reddit
Advertisement
Real Life
Melissa Kite
Sandwich trap
Wild Life
Aidan Hartley
The ‘No’ republic
Heart of the matter
Lloyd EvansGone Too Far!
Hackney Empire
Eating Ice Cream on Gaza Beach
Soho
Piaf
Donmar
Thin on the ground
Deborah RossBen X
15, Key cities
Confessions of a travelling non-dom
O`ar PaliO’ar Pali says it isn’t easy being on planes next to strangers all the time — and you quickly find there are a series of character types, dying to tell you about themselves
Latest blog posts
sponsored links
Sky TV, Broadband & Talk from £16 a Month
Sky TV & free broadband packages available from £16 a month. Choose from a standard free sky box, sky plus or sky hd.
Sky TV, Broadband & Talk from £16 a Month
Sky TV & free broadband packages available from £16 a month. Choose from a standard free sky box, sky plus...
ROME CENTRE
PORTA METRONIA, ROME Standing high on the top of one of the seven hills of Rome- the Coelian- this unique
City Breaks. ROME and PARIS
ROME and PARIS: over 350 holiday rentals apartments listed: visit www.romanreference.com and www.parisreference.com or call +39 0648 903612.
Jewellery. RUFFS (Estd. 1904).
Goldsmiths by Design Welcome to Ruffs! You have found a company of Goldsmiths that specialises in the manufacture, amongst other
Spectator Business | Apollo Magazine
Corporate | Advertising | Privacy | Terms
Spectator, 22 Old Queen Street, London, SW1H 9HP
All Articles and Content Copyright ©2008 by The Spectator | All Rights Reserved
Diana Ngila
March 17th, 2008 1:46pmAidan, 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 2:06amWhat 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 11:24amAmina 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!