The human cost of Somalia’s civil war
Civilians bear the brunt of a conflict which has caused more than 1.5 million people to flee Mogadishu.
Somali civilians are trapped between government security forces and al-Shabab, a group trying to overthrow Somalia’s weak Transitional Federal Government (TFG) and impose Islamic law.
The fighting has forced more than 1.5 milliton people to flee the capital, Mogadishu, in the last two years alone.
Mohammed Yusuf, the chief surgeon at a Somali hospital, has been witness to the hardships people in the area face daily because of the conflict.
“Sometimes when you see a 23 year old lady, pregnant, a mortar shell landed on both her limbs, and you have to cut it to save her life,” he told Al Jazeera.
“And you know that the day after, when she gets healed, she cannot even go in her bed without help.”
Cases of abuse by law enforcement abound. One man told Al Jazeera how officers amputed his limbs after accusing him of being an al-Shabab fighter.
Al Jazeera’s Mohammed Adow reports from Mogadishu.