USA

‘It was either killed or be killed’

Shopkeeper Yusuf Ali still struggles with memories of his time as a child soldier fighting on the streets of Somalia’s capital, Mogadishu.

The 34-year-old was involved in the Islamist insurgency that broke out nearly 20 years ago, and while the city’s urban landscape has improved, few resources are allocated to those still bearing the psychological scars of the conflict.

Warning: This article contains details that some readers may find disturbing.

When he was 14, a coalition of Sharia courts seized power in Somalia, providing some sense of stability in a country torn by devastating clan wars since the collapse of President Siad Barre’s regime in 1991.

However, the Union of Islamic Courts (UIC) was the first example of political Islam taking hold on the African continent since Al Qaeda’s attacks on the USA on September 11, 2001.

Policymakers in Washington greeted the UIC with hostility, accusing it of having ties to Al Qaeda. The military youth wing was known as al-Shabaab, meaning “The Boys”.

In December 2006, thousands of Ethiopian soldiers, under the cover of American drones, invaded Somalia to overthrow the courts, just six months after taking over.

The invasion of Ethiopia was an unpopular venture in Somalia and faced fierce opposition as Al Shabaab and its allies, including a coalition of splinter groups known as Muqawama, meaning “Resistance”, banded together to fight it.

At the time, Ali was living in Huriwaa, a poor area north of Mogadishu.

He lost his father when he was one year old – he was killed while participating in the so-called “Battle of Mogadishu”. Somali fighters infamously clashed with US soldiers after two American Black Hawk helicopters were shot down.

Growing up without his father was difficult, but what changed him forever was the guerrilla warfare that captured Mogadishu during the Ethiopian invasion.

Hundreds of thousands of people fled to Elasha Biyaha and set up makeshift shelters to escape fighting in Mogadishu [AFP via Getty Images]

Ali told the BBC: “I would often hear a humming noise at night. I was in secondary school and didn’t realize it at the time, but these were planes monitoring our neighbourhood.”

By spring 2007, fighting intensified, with heavy shelling and shelling of densely populated civilian neighborhoods suspected of harboring insurgents.

“One night, a large artillery shell hit our area and some of them hit our neighbor’s house. Our house shook and I felt the ground moving under my feet, then I started hearing screams,” Ali recalls.

Crazy citizens saw a lifeless body while trying to remove the rubble.

“Someone pointed a torch and I saw bloodstains and a dead body nearby. A young girl around my age appeared to be but she wasn’t moving. I saw death, but nothing prepared me for that night.”

The family fled to the Elasha Biyaha district, northwest of Mogadishu, which has become a haven for hundreds of thousands of people.

But many young people, including boys his age, were eager to return to the city and fight those referred to by the Somali term “Gaalo”, meaning infidel and used to refer to non-Muslims.

“Everyone was excited by the sermons at the mosque, which called on people to defend their country against the Gaalo,” he says.

This drew him to Mukawama, where former army commanders were also present.

“They trained us in shooting with small arms… We practiced hit-and-run attacks,” he says.

Ali, now 16, found himself in urban warfare in Mogadishu with other young fighters. They were given weapons but not paid, and were eating with other fighters.

Young men and boys look at a market stall selling automatic weapons in Mogadishu in 2006 — Buying weapons became easier in Mogadishu after the overthrow of the Somali government in 1991 [MCT/Getty Images]

Some of the people he was trained to kill were also young; these included Somali soldiers from the transitional government fighting alongside Ethiopian troops.

“We were shooting from street to street, from windows and doorways, at Ethiopian soldiers and with them Somali soldiers,” he says.

“Sometimes I found myself shooting… and as we advanced and noticed a dead body [Somali] The soldier was about my age, I paused but then continued because the fighting was so intense. He was either killed or would be killed; “And that was a cause we were willing to die for.”

Somalis fighting on the side of the Ethiopians, he says, were seen as traitors who “betrayed their country.” The transitional government has been recognized as the legitimate authority of Somalia by the United Nations, the United States and other Western countries.

From 2007 to 2009, Mogadishu was largely buried under rubble. Ethiopia, backed by the United States, has found itself under increasing international scrutiny for its intervention in Somalia. As accusations of war crimes committed by all warring parties intensify.

Eventually, his army withdrew, and the Islamist militants left behind split and turned on each other. A moderate group joined the interim government against the hardliners.

Ali found himself at a crossroads and questioned whether this was a battle worth fighting: “Some of the men I fought with were now fighting their former comrades.

“My mother and siblings wanted better for me. So did my uncle, and he insisted my parents let me go to South Africa and live with him to start over.”

In 2009, Ali was smuggled by road to Johannesburg, where he worked in his uncle’s shop for five years.

But xenophobic attacks, often targeting foreign-owned outlets in South Africa, dragged him to Mogadishu.

He found a city rebuilding itself: a functioning airport, paved roads lined with restaurants, some lined, and street lights illuminating once-feared neighborhoods after dark.

But politically it was a complete mess. Al-Shabaab had evolved into a powerful, hardline militant group that controls large swaths of the country except Mogadishu, where it imposes a strict form of Islam that includes restrictive dress codes and a ban on music.

He had a vast spy network within the city and frequently carried out targeted assassinations against those working in the fledgling government, which was backed by the international community and the African Union force.

“No one trusted each other. No one dared to talk about politics in public. Your own neighbors could be spying on you and you wouldn’t even know it.”

He felt partly guilty about how his community had been affected: “We fought to defend our country, our people and our religion, but after all these years we have made their situation worse.”

Wreckage of the Black Hawk helicopter in Mogadishu in 1993. Some houses made of corrugated iron sheets can be seen behind it. A child walks on one of the helicopter blades. — Yusuf Ali’s father died in a firefight following the downing of US Black Hawk helicopters in 1993. [Scott Peterson / Getty Images]

Even now, married with a four-year-old son, Ali is constantly reminded of the wars.

“I still recognize some of the houses where I threw my gun, and I wonder if the current family living there knows about the bloodstains that once covered their house.”

He never received any counseling or other help to overcome his experiences; Nor did he recruit other former child soldiers whom he knew had become addicted to drugs.

“In Somalia, we don’t talk about our problems,” he says.

“I try to find peace through prayer. We pray and we keep things to ourselves. That’s the culture here, and although a lot of people are hurting, most don’t realize it.”

Ilyas Adam, a human rights legal advisor at the Coalition of Somali Human Rights Defenders, says this type of mental anguish is common among Somali youth.

“The normalization of violence in some areas means trauma often goes unnoticed and untreated, making it a silent but widespread crisis,” he told the BBC.

“When trauma is normalized, often individuals do not recognize their need for help. What complicates matters are cultural barriers where mental health is not openly discussed.”

He thinks post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) can be just as debilitating as the struggle.

“Long-term effects include chronic mental health conditions, social exclusion and stigma, or an increased risk of being re-employed or involved in violence,” says Adam.

The 2021 World Health Organization report said: Somalia’s mental health services were almost non-existent and community-based services were non-existent. A WHO official quoted two years later said: There were only 82 mental health professionals in the entire country.

Armed groups continue to recruit children in Somalia With more than 2,800 cases recorded by the UN between 2021 and 2024.

The use of children – some as young as eight years old – in conflict was mostly by al-Shabaab, considered one of al-Qaeda’s most successful organizations, but the UN report identified 101 cases among government forces.

Mursal Khalif, a member of parliament and head of the Defense Department’s Child Protection Unit, said efforts to stop such recruitment could face resistance, and “some even see it as a Western agenda.”

But he says things are slowly improving with initiatives such as vocational schools for former child soldiers.

A pile of large stones stands in front of a locked shop. A man in a red T-shirt was sitting on the threshold of the shop, checking his phone. — Rubble piles seen in Huriwaa today are reminders of previous conflicts [Mohamed Gabobe]

However, there are no government services in Huriwaa, where Ali lives with his family again; This is still a feared neighborhood because it was once an al-Shabaab stronghold.

Government officials and employees of international organizations rarely enter the area, and even if they do, it is always under tight security.

At sunset, the call to prayer echoes as Ali goes to the mosque in his neighborhood. Site of a deadly 2008 raid in which Ethiopian forces kidnapped 41 children suspected of being rebel trainees.

After an outcry, the children were all released, but for Ali, the mosque remains a reminder of past atrocities and that the Somali people continue to suffer and the country’s “never-ending cycle of violence.”

The government is still fighting Al Shabaab, but this week Government forces and opposition fighters clashed repeatedly in Mogadishu over postponed elections.

“The conflict is still ongoing, people are suffering, and two decades later, more countries than ever have deployed troops in Somalia.”