SAFE HAVEN TURNED INTO NIGHTMARE FOR SOMALI WOMAN RAPED BY SOMALI SOLDIERS

A woman fled with her children to Somalia’s capital Mogadishu, after her husband is killed and her village burnt down. She thought she’d reached a safe haven. Instead, she’s raped at the refugee camp by government soldiers.

The memory comes back to her with certain smells. The smell of fire. The smell of sweat. Fardowso begins to tremble because she cannot forget what those men have done to her.

Fardowso means heaven – it’s not her real name. It is the name she has chosen to stay anonymous.

“They took everything away from me. My husband. My body. My dignity. My home”, she whispers with tears in his eyes.

When memories overwhelm her she feels like screaming, but she presses her hands over her mouth instead, because she does not want to frighten her four children. The oldest is ten years old, the youngest eight months. Fardowso is raising her two boys and two girls alone.

‘They shot my husband’

“At home there were many fights over land and pasture because of the drought. There was a gunfight between my clan and another clan. They shot my husband and burned down our village,” she says. The flames devoured everything. The new widow had no choice but to flee with her children.

Violence between rival clans in Somalia is part of everyday life and has been ongoing for decades. Many men carry weapons. In times of drought when animals die and resources are scarce, armed conflicts increase.

There are currently over six million people in need of humanitarian assistance in Somalia – about half of the population. Asked whether she will ever return home, Fardowso, fully veiled, answers the question with a loud and adamant “no, impossible!”

After the attack on her village she ran for her life and took her children to Mogadishu. They walked for days under the cover darkness and eventually reached one of the overcrowded refugee camps on the outskirts of the capital.

After nearly three decades of conflict and recurring droughts, Mogadishu is home to many thousands of internally displaced people. Countrywide there are more than one million Somalis who have become refugees within the borders of their own country. Many might never return home like Fardowso.

Raped where she was supposed to feel safe

Haltingly, she recalls the night of her attack. Fardowso had managed to build a small round hut with branches, plastic sheeting, metal scraps and old fabric as is common in most of the camps. The huts are tightly squeezed next to each other, there is no privacy.

Fardowso was half asleep and bundled next to her children as night was falling. Suddenly at least two men dressed govenment soldiers's uniforms, pulled her halfway out of her hut, she says. They took turns raping her.

“As they did this to me, I screamed for help. The men then threatened me with guns and knives and cut me. I resisted, but no one came to help me,” she says. “They just carried on.”

Fardowso bares her back and shows the scars of the injuries her rapists inflicted on her with their knives. She says she does not know whether the perpetrators were militiamen or police or maybe refugees like herself.