Maadey Suufi: "The worst experience of my life”

Maadey Suufi, a 27-year-old father from Buur Hakab, fled his home 10 years ago because of drought and insecurity. Since then, he has lived in an overcrowded camp for the displaced in the Suuq Ba'ad area of north Mogadishu, where he raised a family. But, then tragedy struck:

"Life was difficult and we had to struggle to make a living and we managed as best as we could. I met and married my future wife in the camp.

"We had four children and were expecting the fifth when it all ended.

"On Sunday evening [30 December] I went to buy a few things at a nearby shop when shells started landing in our area.

"I quickly returned but our small home was no longer there. My wife who was nine months pregnant and my four children [aged between eight and two years] were dead. There was not a single body, but pieces of them all over the place.

"I could only tell which was which by the size of the limbs, but some parts were so mutilated that we could not figure out who it belonged to.

"It was at night so I had to stay and guard their body parts from the stray cats and dogs. It was the hardest thing to do to sit and look at what is left of the people you loved most in this world.

"On Monday morning my neighbours and the nearby mosque came to help me bury them. It was hard to bury them since the bodies got mixed up.

"I am a religious person and that has sustained me. I do believe that everything happens for a reason and my family is dead for a reason.

"But this is the worst experience of my life. I don’t have a family or a place to call home. I don’t know what I will do, but I cannot go back to that place [the camp].

"What happened to me happened to other Somalis. I pray to God to lift this curse on us.”

ah/sr