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Through the valley of death, caught in the conflict in Somalia: A personal tragedy

By Mohamed Yasin Mohamed -Somaliland

Shamis Aadan Cabdi is a textbook case of the human toll on the conflict in Somalia during the struggle against the Siad Barre’s regime. Born in 1963 in Hargeisa Shamis completed her secondary school at the age of 18. Her plans to go to the university were thwarted when she was forced to marry her father’s best friend. He worked in Hargeisa as a teacher but after he married Shamis he resigned his job and became a businessman with the help of his brother who was in Saudi Arabia.

Within a few years they were rich. Her husband built ten three-story houses. He also deposited large sums of money in the bank.

But in May 1988 all seemed to come to an end. Hargeisa was the scene of heavy fighting. Thousands of people all ages fled the city. Shamis and her four children were also forced to flee to the bush in north east Hargeisa.

Shamis said she did not know where she was going as they fled. “We just wanted to get out of the heavy fighting,” she said.

Joining 12 other fleeing families Shamis and her family walked towards Berbera, about 190 kilometers away.

“All along we saw may people, especially children and elderly people, dead. We had no food except dates and a can of water which we replenished whenever possible,” Shamis said.

When they reached Berbera they continued their trip to the town of Erigavo. The journey, this time by truck, took three days.

“When we arrived my relatives welcomed us warmly. Everybody asked me where my husband was. I could not answer because he was not in the house when we fled. We thought he had been killed in town...”

Later she received the message that her husband was alive. He had been in Hargeisa where he said he had spent 20 days looking for them while trying to shelter from the fighting. But he eventually fled to Mogadishu where his relatives and friends asked him about his wife and family. They, too, had presumed she and the children were killed in the fighting.

But it was not until after five months that the family was reunited. They had exchanged letters and he had sent money. In September, 1989, Shamis and the children moved to Mogadishu. Their family reunion gave them hope that they could be together finally.

But their hopes were premature and short-lived. Fighting came to Mogadishu in December 1990. It raged on until the Siad Barre regime was overthrown. However, the end of the dictator only sparked a new war among the Somali clans and warlords. In the fighting thousands of people, especially women, children and the elderly were killed.

For Shamis and her family war came to her home when, one night, ten young men broke into her house and, killed two of her children, her husband as well as two of her husband’s brothers. The men looted their home, talking away as much as they could carry. . “The next morning I took my remaining two children and together with my sister we started to run again. There was fighting everywhere. We continued until we crossed the border into Kenya.” she said

But they were detained at the border for nearly 40 days. “We hardly had any food, had no water and no shelter. “ She said the Kenyan police were cruel to the Somali refugees. After 40 days of misery, she said she recognized one of the policemen. He was from her clan.

“He had pity on us, gave us food and finally helped us to go back under escort to Hargeisa.”

The trip to Hargeisa took 35 days.

Shamis now sells tea and sometimes charcoal to earn an income.

“That is enough talk about my miserable situation. It is not words that can change my life But life’s improvement in my country is needed"