'It was either killed or be killed' - ongoing nightmares of an ex-child soldier in Somalia

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

The 34-year-old became embroiled in the Islamist insurgency, which erupted nearly 20 years ago, and while the city’s urban landscape is healing, few resources are devoted to those still suffering with the psychological scars of the conflict.

Warning: This article contains details some readers may find upsetting.

When he was 14 years old, a coalition of Sharia courts seized power in Somalia and provided some sense of stability in a country that had been riven by devastating clan warfare since the regime of President Siad Barre collapsed in 1991.

But the Union of Islamic Courts (UIC) marked the first instance of political Islam gaining a foothold in the African continent since al-Qaeda’s 11 September 2001 attacks on the US.

Policymakers in Washington viewed the UIC with hostility, accusing it of having ties to al-Qaeda. Its military youth wing was known as al-Shabab, meaning “The Lads”.

In December 2006, thousands of Ethiopian troops invaded Somalia under the cover of American drones with the aim of toppling the courts just six months after they had taken over.

Ethiopia’s invasion was deeply unpopular in Somalia and was met with fierce opposition as al-Shabab and its allies, including a coalition of splinter groups known as the Muqawama, meaning “Resistance”, clubbed together to fight it.

At the time Ali lived in Huriwaa, an impoverished district in the north of Mogadishu.

Aged one, he had lost his father – killed while taking part in what has been dubbed the “Battle of Mogadishu”, when Somali fighters infamously clashed with US soldiers after the downing of two American Black Hawk helicopters.

It was hard growing up without his dad, but it was the guerrilla warfare that overtook Mogadishu during the Ethiopian invasion that changed him forever.

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“At night, I’d often hear a buzzing sound. I was in secondary school and didn’t realise it then, but these were planes surveilling our neighbourhood,” Ali tells the BBC.

By the spring of 2007, fighting intensified with heavy shelling and bombardment of densely populated civilian neighbourhoods suspected of sheltering insurgents.

“On one of the nights, a large barrage of shells hit our area and some of them struck our neighbour’s house. Our house shook and I felt like the soil under my feet had moved – then I started hearing screams,” Ali recalls.

Frantic residents struggled to lift the rubble and that was when he saw a lifeless body.

“Someone aimed a torch and I saw blood stains and a body lying nearby. A young girl that looked around my age, but she wasn’t moving. I’ve seen death, but nothing prepared me for that night.”

The family fled to the Elasha Biyaha district north-west of Mogadishu, which had become a refuge 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 as “Gaalo” – a term in the Somali language meaning infidels, used to refer to non-Muslims.

“From the sermons at the mosque that called on people to defend their country from the Gaalo, everyone was fired up,” he says.

This drew him to Muqawama, which included former army commanders.

“They trained us in small arms fire… We practised hit-and-run attacks,” he says.

Ali, by now aged 16, then found himself in Mogadishu with other young combatants engaged in urban warfare. They were given guns – but not paid – and would eat together with the other fighters.

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Some of those he was trained to kill were also young, including Somali soldiers allied to the transitional government who were fighting alongside Ethiopia troops.

“Street by street, from windows and doorways, we were firing on Ethiopian soldiers and the Somali soldiers with them,” he says.

“At times I’d find myself shooting… and as we advanced and noticed a dead [Somali] soldier was around my age, I paused but then would keep moving because the fighting was so intense. It was either killed or be killed – and this was a cause we were willing to die for.”

He says Somalis fighting on the side of the Ethiopians were viewed as traitors for “betraying their country”. The transitional government was recognised by the United Nations, US and other Western countries as Somalia’s legitimate authority.

From 2007 to 2009 Mogadishu was largely reduced to rubble. Ethiopia, backed by the US, found itself coming under growing international scrutiny over its intervention in Somalia, as accusations of war crimes committed by all warring parties intensified.

Its army eventually withdrew and the Islamist militants left behind splintered and turned against each other. One moderate faction joined the interim government against the hardliners.

Ali found himself at a crossroads, questioning if it was a war worth fighting: “Some of the men I fought alongside were now fighting their former comrades.

“My mother and siblings wanted better for me. And so did my uncle – and he urged my family to let me go to South Africa and live with him to start afresh.”

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

But xenophobic attacks in South Africa – that often target outlets owned by foreigners – drove him home to Mogadishu.

He found a city rebuilding itself: a functioning airport, paved roads some lined with restaurants and street lighting keeping once-feared neighbourhoods alight after dark.

But politically it was a mess. Al-Shabab had morphed into a powerful, hardline militant group controlling large swathes of the country outside Mogadishu where it imposed a strict form of Islam, including restrictive dress codes and banning music.

It had a large network of spies inside the city – and organised frequent targeted assassinations against those working in the fledgling government, which was backed by the international community and an African Union force.

“No-one trusted each other. No-one dared to speak about politics publicly. Your own neighbours could be spying on you and you wouldn’t even know it.”

He felt partly to blame for how his community had been impacted: “We fought to defend our country, people and religion but only made things worse on them all these years later.”

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Even now – married and with a four-year-old son – Ali is constantly reminded of the battles.

“I still recognise some of the houses I had shot my gun from and wonder if the current family living there knows about the blood stains that once covered their home.”

He has never had any counselling or other help to get over his experiences – nor have other ex-child soldiers he knows who have become drug addicts.

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

“I try to find peace through prayer. We pray and keep things to ourselves. This is the culture here and is the reason why many people are hurting but most don’t realise it.”

Ilyas Adam, a human rights legal consultant with the Coalition of Somali Human Rights Defenders, says such mental anguish is widespread among young Somalis.

“The normalisation of violence in some areas means that trauma often goes unrecognised and untreated, making it a silent but pervasive crisis,” he tells the BBC.

“When trauma is normalised, oftentimes individuals do not recognise their need for help. Complicating matters are the cultural barriers, where mental health is not openly discussed.”

He feels post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) can be as debilitating as combat.

“The long-term effects include chronic mental health conditions, social exclusion and stigma or increased risk of re-recruitment or involvement in violence,” Adam says.

A 2021 World Health Organization report said Somalia’s mental health services were almost non-existent – with no community-based services. A WHO official quoted two years later said there were only 82 mental health professionals in the whole country.

The use of children in combat – some as young as eight – was mainly by al-Shabab, still considered one of al-Qaeda’s most successful affiliates, but the UN report did find 101 cases in the government forces.

Mursal Khalif, an MP and head of the Ministry of Defence’s Child Protection Unit, says efforts to stop such recruitment can face resistance – “some even viewed it as a Western agenda”.

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

Mohamed Gabobe

Yet in Huriwaa, where Ali lives once more with his family, there are no state services – it is a neighbourhood still feared because it used to be an al-Shabab stronghold.

Government officials and employees of international organisations rarely venture into the area, and if they do, it is always under tight security.

After an outcry the children were all freed, but for Ali the mosque remains a reminder of the outrages of the past – and those the Somali people continue to suffer – and what appears to be the country’s “never-ending cycle of violence”.

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

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