It seems an unlikely choice: fleeing the palm-fringed beaches of tourist paradise Zanzibar for the bombed-out buildings of war-torn capital Mogadishu, one of the most dangerous cities in the world. And yet opposition supporters from the Tanzanian archipelago did just that when they fled post-election violence in 2000; they recount their epic journey into a violent city most people are desperate to leave. “We feared prison and violence, being arrested if we stayed home,” said Hamis Mohammed, one of about a hundred Zanzibaris living in Mogadishu, where gunmen cruise the ruined city in heavily armed pickup trucks. “First we ran to Kenya, but we did not feel safe there and could not make a living, so after many years, we are now here living in Mogadishu,” Mohammed added, a supporter of Zanzibar’s Civic United Front (CUF) party.
The refugees said police cracked down on supporters during post-election violence in which some 30 people died, forcing several to leave by boat to Kenya. Over a decade since they left, many of the Zanzibari community here now cohabit in one crumbling and bullet-scarred building, a former government ministry abandoned during the two-decades of war in the city.
“The situation here in Somalia is not good, but we survive,” said Salim Ahmed, one of the leaders of Mogadishu’s Zanzibari community, as the crackle of rifle fire echoes in the distance. “We get no support from aid agencies, so we find small jobs — barbers, beggars, fishermen, or as labourers,” he added. The Zanzibari’s journey is the opposite of tens of thousands of Somalis, who have fled to neighbouring Kenya and Ethiopia from drought, famine and conflict, while others have braved the dangerous sea-crossing to troubled Yemen. The UN has described Somalia, where a civil war has been going on since 1991, as facing the most severe humanitarian crisis in the world, with several regions including Mogadishu declared to be in famine. “God willing, we will go back home someday,” said Masud Rashid, who left the white-sand beaches of the Zanzibari island of Pemba in 2001.
— ‘A dream to go home’ –: He spent over a year in Kenya’s giant Dadaab refugee camp, before leaving in frustration as refugees are barred from work and travelling to Mogadishu during a period of relative calm because he heard jobs were available.
“We have many problems here, but we are still fearful of going home,” added Rashid, who works as a barber, and is now married to a Somali woman. “Coming to Mogadishu was not a choice, it was the only place we could a find a place to be left alone, and where we could work,” said Abdul Abdallah, a Zanzibari fisherman, wearing a T-shirt with the slogan “make love, not war.”
“The Somalis treat us ok, we go to the mosque together, it is only that you can never tell when there will be fighting here.” In the crowded market outside, sacks of grain from the UN World Food Programme are illegally sold, alongside a stall selling empty ammunition boxes.
