ALL PIX INDY BUY-IN UNLESS MARKED

For 18 awful years, Somalia has been at war with itself. Mogadishu, looks more like Ancient Rome than a modern city.  with hundreds of thousands of its shellshocked residents abandoning their capital in the last year alone. 

Which makes these walking wounded the survivors of  what is probably the biggest humanitarian crisis in the world.  A crisis so dangerous to report that stories from inside the warzone are rarely seen or heard.

Abukar's friends have all deserted the city.  He complains that Somalia has been in turmoil for so long that only his generation can remember peace. And he's desperate for money to fly to London or anywhere rather than here. 

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BANG BANG

PIX- REUTER FROM PREVIOUS RUGMAN VT  TX 6th AUGUST 2009

ln Mogadishu Islamist rebels and forces loyal to the President are fighting a perpetual turfwar. and woe betide anyone caught in the crossfire.

INDY BUY-IN

At the city hospital . you find them: scores of civilians. The doctors say they have space for 80 patients here, yet they treat over 200. Including This 12 year old girl who has been shot - by which side or why nobody can say.

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This place is no sanctuary from the fighting. For Islamist gunmen have threatened to killed the chief doctor, accusing him and his staff of treating "unbelievers". So its a wonder the doctors turn up for work at all, as the casualty numbers ebb and flow.

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These distressing scenes from last month are a case in point. There was fighting around the docks, but a mortar hit this medical centre killing several disabled men in their wheelchairs. And turning what was a kitchen into a gruesome morgue. At least two children also lost their lives here.

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Now incense is burnt to get rid of the stench of death and the bodies are prepared for burial.

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There is a semblance of authority amid the ruins. This building may have no windows but its the nerve centre of the Somali navy. Inside a full Admiral and his adjutants in their peaked caps. Pledging to clean up Somalia's notorious pirate infested waters.

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The Admiral's motley crew of marines seems raring to go. Even if they are wearing the caps of the Spanish football team, Real Madrid. But there's a far bigger problem. Somalia's entire fleet has been stolen and right now the Admiral commands no ships at all.

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The Admiral took our cameraman down to his coastline, through defences levelled flat like the set of a Hollywood disaster movie.

In April foreign donors pledged 200 million dollars to Somalia's so called government.

But the money like the Admiral's navy, is nowhere to be seen.

And with no prospect of his new recruits taking on pirates, other navies including the American and British are spend millions doing it themselves

The sound of sporadic gunfire forces our team back to their car. And seconds later, much of the Somali navy is running for cover.

Two groups of Somali militia have started shooting at each other nearby; the two militia supposedly on the same side.

Our crew seeks shelter and drives to the compound of a local merchant. Who's on the phone.

They are attacking as usual, he says, its normal, laughing it all off without a flinch.

Later he lays on  a tour of his abandoned warehouse. There are no customers and nobody to serve them anyway. but though the staff have fled, their boss will not.

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There is a Somali football team. Though it always plays away games. Inviting foreign teams to play in Mogadishu is pointless. And its a constant battle to stop the Somali players from signing up for another national pastime - the warfare all around them.

Somalia's so called government controls about one third of the capital and is holed up on this hill. The gunmen are armed by the Americans who fear Al Qaeda is coming. Somali politicians counter that the west has failed them and that Al Qaeda is already here.

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There is foreign support in the shape of  5000 Ugandan and Burundian peacekeepers. 3000 short of what the African Union promised, but a lifeline for the city nevertheless.

Hand in your weapon at the base door and the army doctors will see you.

Up to 800 patients are treated daily, many with gunshot wounds. Apparently safe in the knowledge that their fellow Africans won't turn the sick and hurt away, even if it breaks all the rules.

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 2 days later this soldier's charity was answered with an act of terror.  2 Somali suicide bombers drove into this base and killed 17 peacekeepers and 4 civilians.

In a city so riddled with danger that even a dozen camels were mown down for straying too close to the front line, in a city awash with blood.

ends