00.13.26

Aerial shot of Mogadishu

13.27

(v/o)

Camera zooms in

Mogadishu port is the most important destination for Somalia's food aid, but it's also at the centre of black market trafficking.

13.35

13.55

Shot of ship, men on dock

Ruckus on dock, gunmen highlighted

We filmed aboard a French cargo ship, La Brillante, unloading two and a half thousand tonnes donated by the French government. Here, Somali porters and guards are hired by aid agencies, but also help themselves to supplies at the rate of up to 100 tonnes a day. They don't want witnesses. When we were spotted, gunmen fired over our heads.

14.05

14.44

Somalis loading supplies onto a truck

Fight breaks out

Filmed from elsewhere on the ship, these were the scenes they didn't want us to see; bags of food smuggled into containers in warehouses on the quayside. Later, this man in black slips away with a box of cooking oil. On this occasion, other workers chase him, and the box is eventually returned to the lorry. A boy seen at the back of the lorry has more success. This goes on amid squabbling between different clans or families, accompanied by gunfire. Relief officials admit the situation is out of control.

14.55

French CARE worker Gail du Chatellier

The problem is... is anarchy. Nobody can control anybody. We have 900 guard, 900 security guard, into ports. And in those 900 you have at least 3 or 5 gangs. That means, in those gangs, you have many families, many problems between each other.

15.20

Convoy of trucks driving away from port, shot of junction

Lorries leaving the port are frequently held up at gunpoint and robbed. One truck from this convoy was picked clean at this junction within a mile of the harbour.

15.32

Young boy speaks (subbed)

The convoy came from the port. The gunshots started. The gang had a vehicle with an anti-aircraft gun. They overpowered the men on the convoy. The food was looted from here.

15.50

Shots of Bakara market

The destination of the looted supplies is Bakara market in Mogadishu. Here, the starving beg for scraps.

16.04

Men toss rice onto ground

Aid made possible by donations in the West ends up available only to those with money.

16.09

Interview with merchant

This merchant admitted selling stolen food.

M: I am sad that the relief organisations cannot feed the hungry. The food is available so we have to buy it.

The grain piled up on either side of the street is bought for the equivalent of ten dollars a sack.

M: I know people are killed during the looting and I'm not happy about it. But in these circumstances, there's no other food to buy.

16.43

UN van drives down street

Shots of ruined city

Gang members in city

The task of keeping food aid out of the black market has fallen to the United Nations. 50 ceasefire observers have begun showing the flag in the shattered centre of Mogadishu. Keeping watch along the boundary between rival clan groups, they're protected at all times by hired gunmen and so called technical vehicles. As they talk to locals at the checkpoint, sacks of looted food are wheeled past. There's uneasiness when the Somali guards and their technical are delayed.

17.22

Guard speaks into walkie-talkie

One-one, there is er, a very crowd of people around us here, and there is not anything that can come around through now. And here is very crowd of people.

17.29

Military men at dinner

The observers came here last month, ahead of at least 500 UN troops, due within a fortnight to make the port and airport safe for aid.  The monitors admit they've spent most of their time here in their quarters. 

17.43

UN observer Herbie Kosseg speaks

So far we've been more or less prisoners in this compound, because, you know... the vehicles have arrived only a couple of days ago, but it will get better, definitely, for us.

17.55

Sequence of David Shearer of the Save the Children fund doing his work, interviewed

Aid workers with long service in Mogadishu are unimpressed with the UN's performance so far.

DS: Well, I think they've failed, really. And it shouldn't be that we're this far down the road and it takes media pictures blasting in the New Yorker of people dying to get the UN involved and see the size of the operation we're seeing now.

18.22

Brigadier Imtiaz Shaheen speaks

I'm not here to enforce any kind of law, ordinance, security, in the town. My mandate clearly says to monitor the ceasefire along the armistice line. And to that extent, I do the job.

18.41

Somali official in uniform directs traffic

The UN soldiers will arrive in a country with no regular police force. Elderly traffic officers no longer paid for their point's duty are the only representatives of authority most people see.

19.00

Men sorting out khat

The volatile atmosphere is fuelled by khat, a powerful stimulant to which most men here seem addicted.

19.07

Shots of crowd

An angry crowd gathers, confusion after a burst of gunfire. They want us to go away.

19.15

Steve Smith speaks directly to camera

We've just witnessed a fatal shooting incident here in the markets of Mogadishu. A man was shot dead in the middle of the day in front of crowded stalls a few yards away from where we were filming.

19.24

Group of men huddles together

Amid the continuing violence, the clan groupings in Mogadishu have agreed to the deployment of the UN groups, with varying degrees of enthusiasm. The United Somali congress in the south of the capital claims security can only return if the country is flooded with food from a so far indifferent West. 

19.47

Abdul Karim of the United Somali Congress speaks

If the food is enough, no- nothing will happen. We believe the food is not enough. So the man, the young man with the gun, his family's starving at home. So in the morning he gets up, there's no job, no school to go, there's no farming in the country, everything is collapsed. The only means he has is the gun. So he has to look for the food.

20.06

Man in uniform overseeing traffic

In Northern Mogadishu, the gunmen of a rival leader have been put into uniform and other men disarmed. Ali Mahdi, briefly president before the civil war, sees security as the precursor of political rebuilding.

20.22

Interim President Mohamed Ali Mahdi speaks (subbed)

We've called on all political movements to convene a congress to solve the disputes peacefully and elect a legitimate government and a leader they want.

20.35

Gang members with guns in jeep

But Somalia's political leaders cannot always influence the gunmen, as the six months of looting since the ceasefire suggests. This technical gunman told us Mogadishu did not need the UN. The United Somali Congress has enough force to take care of the situation, he said.

In this city, where the hired guards at the port are also the looters, who's to say the gunmen now paid to protect the UN won't become their enemy?

Steve Smith, ITN, Somalia