Ms. Ali and her children live in the Tufah camp for Internally Displaced People (IDPs) located in Kahda, one of the 18 districts of Mogadishu, Somalia.
One January morning, the 28-year-old mother of six left the IDP camp in search of firewood to prepare the family meal. As she gathered dry twigs in the thickets under the blistering sun, two armed men accosted her.
It was one of the men’s gun butts that hit her head and sent her sprawling to the ground. Aiming their weapons at her from above, the assailants menacingly warned her against attempting to flee. Ms. Ali was too shaken to raise the alarm.
“One of the men dropped his gun, pinned me to the ground, ripped my clothes. He descended on me while his colleague stood by, on guard. I was left hopeless and broken,” Marian breaks down as she narrates her story.
After sexually assaulting her, the men vanished from the scene into the thickets while Ms. Ali, bruised, staggered back to her makeshift house at the camp, too weak to carry the firewood.
“That day, my children went to bed hungry,” she adds in a weak voice. “It was the worst day of my life.”
Last year, in his report on conflict-related sexual violence in Somalia, the UN Secretary-General noted that the United Nations Assistance Mission in Somalia (UNSOM) had verified cases of conflict-related sexual violence against 340 girls, women and boys. The perpetrators were primarily clan militias and Al-Shabaab soldiers.
A year ago, 50-year-old Hamdi Abdi Elmi* took a night bus from Beletweyne to Mogadishu in central Somalia. Aboard the bus were 20 passengers, 14 of whom were female, including a 15-year-old girl.
The journey turned into a nightmare when armed men intercepted the bus just before they reached Buula Burde, a city in Somalia's central Hiran region, and sexually assaulted all the 14 female passengers. Ms. Elmi never shared her agony with her family members.
The ordeal left her scarred. She is traumatised by the sight of men in military uniform because it reminds her of her perpetrators. “My life was shattered. I fear travelling to Beletweyne by road again,” says Ms. Elmi, who is a mother of seven and grandmother of four.
www.hiiraan.com
May Allah help our sisters back home, this is too sad to read
One January morning, the 28-year-old mother of six left the IDP camp in search of firewood to prepare the family meal. As she gathered dry twigs in the thickets under the blistering sun, two armed men accosted her.
It was one of the men’s gun butts that hit her head and sent her sprawling to the ground. Aiming their weapons at her from above, the assailants menacingly warned her against attempting to flee. Ms. Ali was too shaken to raise the alarm.
“One of the men dropped his gun, pinned me to the ground, ripped my clothes. He descended on me while his colleague stood by, on guard. I was left hopeless and broken,” Marian breaks down as she narrates her story.
After sexually assaulting her, the men vanished from the scene into the thickets while Ms. Ali, bruised, staggered back to her makeshift house at the camp, too weak to carry the firewood.
“That day, my children went to bed hungry,” she adds in a weak voice. “It was the worst day of my life.”
Last year, in his report on conflict-related sexual violence in Somalia, the UN Secretary-General noted that the United Nations Assistance Mission in Somalia (UNSOM) had verified cases of conflict-related sexual violence against 340 girls, women and boys. The perpetrators were primarily clan militias and Al-Shabaab soldiers.
A year ago, 50-year-old Hamdi Abdi Elmi* took a night bus from Beletweyne to Mogadishu in central Somalia. Aboard the bus were 20 passengers, 14 of whom were female, including a 15-year-old girl.
The journey turned into a nightmare when armed men intercepted the bus just before they reached Buula Burde, a city in Somalia's central Hiran region, and sexually assaulted all the 14 female passengers. Ms. Elmi never shared her agony with her family members.
The ordeal left her scarred. She is traumatised by the sight of men in military uniform because it reminds her of her perpetrators. “My life was shattered. I fear travelling to Beletweyne by road again,” says Ms. Elmi, who is a mother of seven and grandmother of four.
Women in Somalia live through pain of displacement and trauma of conflict-related sexual violence
Mogadishu – The horrors of what happened that day still haunt Marian Osman Ali*.
May Allah help our sisters back home, this is too sad to read
