(Mogadishu) 07 Jan 2020<\/strong><\/span> – Despite a growing sense of stability and optimism after decades of chaos and violence, Somalia has been unable to curb the threat posed by the terrorist group Al Shabab.<\/p>\n

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The site of a truck bomb at a major intersection in Mogadishu, Somalia.\u00a0<\/span>Credit…<\/span>Brian Otieno for The New York Times<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n
MOGADISHU, Somalia \u2014 They were the kind of bright, young people Somalia hoped to build its future around: hard-working university students in health sciences, in a battered country with a critical shortage of health workers<\/a>.Amran Kasim Ahmed, 22, was at the top of her class and nurtured dreams of revamping Somalia\u2019s threadbare health care system.<\/p>\n
Abshir Mohamed Abukar, 23, was the only one of seven siblings to finish high school and attend university.But their aspirations ended abruptly on Dec. 28, when an explosive-laden truck detonated<\/a> at a busy intersection here in Mogadishu, Somalia\u2019s capital. The terrorist group Al Shabab claimed responsibility for the bombing, which killed 82 people, including Ms. Ahmed and Mr. Abukar, and injured nearly 150 others, according to the government.<\/p>\n
Even in the face of increasing American airstrikes<\/a> and defections, the Shabab, a militant Islamist group linked to Al Qaeda, has grown powerful in recent years, expanding its bomb-making operations and carrying out a string of daring attacks<\/a> across East Africa.<\/p>\n
On Sunday, it killed<\/a> a United States service member and two American military contractors in an attack on a Kenyan military base in Manda Bay, on the Indian Ocean coast.For almost a decade now, a sense of optimism has taken hold in Somalia after a generation of chaos. A central government backed by the United Nations took hold, new businesses like swanky coffee stores opened and a budding tech scene rose despite the odds<\/a>.<\/p>\n
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A coffee house in Mogadishu.\u00a0For almost a decade now, a sense of optimism has grown in Somalia after a generation of chaos.\u00a0<\/span>Credit…<\/span>Brian Otieno for The New York Times<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n
Yet the progress has proved fragile, as the Shabab has continued to get stronger and flex its military might<\/a> in recent years. The group\u2019s relentless onslaught on both civilian and government establishments in Mogadishu has killed lawmakers, civil servants, business people, journalists and, last July, the mayor of Mogadishu, Abdirahman Omar Osman<\/a>.In the Dec. 28 attack, 16 of the dead and 18 others who were critically injured were students at Benadir University \u2014 most of them young women studying sciences in a country where precious few women have access to higher education.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are losing the best and the brightest,\u201d said Sahra Mire Mohamed, a lecturer at Benadir. The loss of so much promise, she said, is \u201ca huge tragedy.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Sahra Mire Mohamed, a lecturer at Benadir University.\u00a0<\/span>Credit…<\/span>Brian Otieno for The New York Times<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n
When she learned that Ms. Ahmed was among the victims, Ms. Mohamed said she went to the hospital and asked to view the body \u2014 to see for herself that one of her favorite and most promising students was really gone.<\/p>\n
Mr. Abukar\u2019s family hoped he would one day improve their meager earnings and help relocate them from the three-room metal shack they called home.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe was the best hope this family had,\u201d said his father, Mohamed Abukar. \u201cBut Allah gave him to us first and he took him again.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Mohamed Abukar, the father of Abshir Abukar, at the family home.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>Credit…<\/span>Brian Otieno for The New York Times<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n
All that remains to them is a table full of notebooks filled with his cursive handwriting and certificates celebrating his achievements.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe know that we will die one day, but you never want to believe your own child will be killed in an explosion,\u201d the elder Mr. Abukar said.It was a week before midsemester exams began, and the students were anxious to reach campus to begin preparing. Traveling in two minibuses during the morning rush hour, they were passing through a busy intersection known as the Ex-Control Junction when the blast ripped through the traffic, blowing out a wall of a police station and tax collection center.Pieces of the victims\u2019 bodies and blown-up textbooks mixed with the sand, stone and scraps of metal strewn around the intersection. The attack, the worst in Somalia in more than two years<\/a>, left countless families, friends and colleagues struggling to comprehend how so much could be lost so senselessly \u2014 yet again.Somalia has been at war for nearly three decades, wracked first by combat among clan warlords and then by violent extremism. For most of that time, it effectively had no central government, followed by a government with a tenuous hold and limited power.To bolster security and prevent attacks, the authorities have resorted to barricading or entirely closing major roads in Mogadishu. Yet the deadly violence in the city has continued unabated, quashing the spirit of the long-suffering people and leaving them to wonder who will fall victim next.<\/p>\n
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Lido beach in Mogadishu. The deadly violence in the city has continued unabated, dispiriting the long-suffering people and leaving them to wonder who will fall victim next.<\/span>Credit…<\/span>Brian Otieno for The New York Times<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n
The Benadir University students who were killed and maimed at the Ex Control intersection were heading to the Dr. Shahid Campus on the outskirts of the city. The campus was named after a Somali doctor and scholar, Mohamed Adam Warsame, popularly known as Shahid, who was among the university\u2019s founders in 2002.<\/p>\n
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In December 2009, Dr. Warsame was among 25 people killed when a Shabab suicide bomber targeted a Benadir graduation. The doctor\u2019s son Duale, who survived that day, was killed<\/a> in a terrorist attack on a major hotel in Mogadishu in 2016.\u201cIt\u2019s a recurrent tragedy,\u201d said another son of Dr. Warsame, Rage, who is now Benadir\u2019s dean of students. Reflecting on the past and present losses, he said that there was no option but to \u201cbe patient, work hard, and produce the next cadre of doctors and leaders.\u201dYet his optimism belies the growing frustration with the authorities, who many Somalis say haven\u2019t done enough to learn from the past or improve emergency preparedness and response. The government has come under particular scrutiny recently, as floods have killed dozens of people and a locust plague has ravished crops and grazing land.With a fleet of 15 vehicles, Aamin Ambulance is the only free ambulance service attending to Mogadishu\u2019s more than 2 million people. Yet its founder, Abdulkadir Adan, said two of its new ambulances have been stuck at Mogadishu\u2019s port for six months because of red tape.<\/p>\n
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Abdulkadir Adan, founder of Aamin Ambulance,\u00a0the only free ambulance service attending to Mogadishu\u2019s more than 2 million people.<\/span>Credit…<\/span>Brian Otieno for The New York Times<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve reached out to the local government numerous times, but nothing has happened,\u201d Mr. Adan said. \u201cIn a city that suffers regular bomb attacks, and has many medical emergencies, we need to have all the ambulances we can.\u201dAbdihakim Ainte has spearheaded multiple civilian efforts<\/a> to help casualties and their families. It was important not to be numbed by the disasters, he said \u2014 to recall each victim as a real person, and honor the meaning and context of their lives.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have to say: \u2018Enough is enough. If you kill another student, you kill all of us,\u2019\u201d said Mr. Ainte, who is now working on a campaign to commemorate the Benadir students. \u201cWe can\u2019t have the same tragedy happening to students from the same university after a decade. We can\u2019t remain silent.\u201dAt the scene of the attack, amid the rubble and the mangled frame of a vehicle, a police officer echoed Mr. Ainte\u2019s concerns. \u201cI have lost so many officers fighting the terrorists, but no one remembers them,\u201d he said. \u201cEveryone just moves on.\u201d<\/p>\n
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The tax office damaged in the attack.\u00a0<\/span>Credit…<\/span>Brian Otieno for The New York Times<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n
For Benadir students who lost their classmates, however, carrying on as usual will be hard. A week after the attack, Salma Ali Hashi says she still cannot believe that she won\u2019t share jokes with Ms. Ahmed on the daily commute.\u201cWe were two people united by education,\u201d Ms. Hashi said. \u201cI still cannot believe she\u2019s dead.\u201d<\/p>\n
By Abdi Latif Dahir<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n
Source: New York Times<\/p>\n
Hadalsame Media<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
(Mogadishu) 07 Jan 2020 – Despite a growing sense of stability and optimism after decades of chaos and violence, Somalia has been unable to curb the threat posed by the terrorist group Al Shabab. The site of a truck bomb at a major intersection in Mogadishu, Somalia.\u00a0Credit…Brian Otieno for The New York Times MOGADISHU, Somalia […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":38918,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.hadalsame.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/b-3.jpeg?fit=800%2C533&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9Xl2P-a7x","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hadalsame.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38907"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hadalsame.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hadalsame.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hadalsame.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hadalsame.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38907"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.hadalsame.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38907\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":38925,"href":"https:\/\/www.hadalsame.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38907\/revisions\/38925"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hadalsame.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/38918"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hadalsame.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38907"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hadalsame.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38907"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hadalsame.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38907"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}