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| Mogadishu - Ghost City |
 Boiling hot, the temperature is nearly 42 C. A hot wind is carrying clouds of dust. Annoying buzzing of flies. Wherever I look, I see a terrifying sight of charred ruins of houses destroyed by artillery and bombing raids. Until 1991 those buildings were banks, hotels You can see holes made by bullets in every wall. All around there are rubbish dumps with their striking stink. The few passers-by demonstrate distinct mistrust towards a stranger. A two-wheeled donkey wagonette is slowly moving in the street full of holes; here and there, people huddle under walls. In one corner some optimism is cast by a jacaranda tree blooming in purple.
The sense of depression is difficult to shake off. I only saw such sea of human misery in Kabul - the city which can shock each and every stranger. I am now in Mogadishu, the capital of Somalia, a ghost country not recognised by the UNO. Ministries of foreign affairs of many countries strongly advise people not to travel to this Corner of Africa, for whatever reason and in whatever character, and they refuse to assume responsibility for what their citizens may encounter in this dangerous region. My journalist trip is an attempt to get to know this country which has not seen visitors for years now. Inhabited by nearly two million of lost and living through a nightmare people, Mogadishu is in the hands of leaders of six clans, each of them having their private police armies and frequently clashing in real battles.(...)
As soon as I meet my guide, he asks me: "How much will you pay me for the interview?". "How much will you pay me for publishing it?", I replied. "I will guarantee you'll survive in my territory", he added in a more friendly manner. Crime is blooming in the city. Nearly everyone has firearms. For example, you could buy an AK-47 "made in Russia" for as little as 120 dollars, which is much less than at the famous Smuggler's Bazaar in the Pakistani town of Darra. No single day passes without murder, pillage, rape or kidnapping. A young local surgeon got back his freedom last week - people from his clan had to pay 4 thousand dollars for him.
 Moving around here is like constant balancing on a tightrope. What makes you remember it are single muffled shots or violent shootings which break moments of unreal silence. In this country, nobody knows the exact number of living citizens (5, 7, 9 million?), but also nobody knows how many people die each day. A day before I arrived, rebels shot down a transport airplane flying to Somalia from Russia - 4 people died. The Somali side maintains this was an accident. Investigation expected to explain the reasons of this disaster is in progress but solution of this "mystery" should not be hoped for. The number of transport companies which send their airplanes into this region is falling; passenger lines are a different story, but transport airlines are not really flying here as they are a tasty target for rebels who shoot down airplanes to rob them and to become famous. From time to time, neighbouring countries prohibit flights to Somalia in an attempt to defend themselves from unconscious participation in smuggling of weapons. At the moment the only line which reaches most remote parts of Somalia belongs to an Kenyan businessman - Barthe Cortes, owner of BVC Airways. Meeting him is one of my objectives.
My guide makes several phone calls and then recommends that if I really want to meet him, we need to go downtown, to the most turbulent part of the city and there I should get in touch with local bosses to get "permission to drive through their regions"; they would put us in touch with him. I take up the challenge because I really want to know who that man is, what he is like, why - despite numerous shootings at his airplanes - Cortes has not suspended the flights yet. Recently his airplane was being shot at during takeoff by rebels from one of the six fractions. As a journalist - reporter, I wonder about motives of people who risk their lives, who manage to find their place in this hell on earth. Downtown we meet people ready to actively participate in every fight. Two of them look inside our car. The atmosphere is tense. They tell us to wait. Soon, a guy arrives who is addressed by everyone as "boss"; he probably knows Barthe Cortes well but he won't make a decision before we obtain the permission of a gang leader whose territory begins three blocks away. After half an hour of waiting, a young man with a Kalashnikov with a rifle grenade and bayonet categorically tells us to return to where we come from. Luckily, at the same time the "boss" comes back and tells me and my guide to get into a car with two of his armed men. We get in and the car drives to the suburbs of Mogadishu
 Armed boys only escort us to a dangerous line dividing the city into two main zones of influences where - with arms ready to shoot - "boys" of another local leader await us. Changing the means of transport only takes a few seconds and we drive away with a squeal of tyres. We get to our destination. I experience moments of highest tension again as I take photographs of a burned wreck of a Delta Force commando helicopter. From an approaching car with a military unit inside, a strongly built man in a t-shirt saying "I am a killer and I am cool" jumps out and, menacingly brandishing his browning machine gun in front of my face, he says I have entered his territory
I can hear my determined guards repeat their weapons while their commander nearly throws me into the back seat of the car. Despite increased vigilance and caution, I have again crossed the border of risk. Someone is shooting, bullets get the back of the car. In this city, for each incorrect move you can pay the highest price: your life. We are driving fast, at the moment I don't even know where; suddenly, the car slows down, the door opens - a man gets in. Everything happens within just a few seconds, so I am not able to collect my thoughts, but the man introduces himself: Barthe Cortes.  Shock connected with the whole situation which has just happened, the shooting, permanent threat to my life - it makes all the questions I wanted to ask Cortes evaporate from my head. I only know one thing: I am surprised, I don't really know why but I was expecting someone different, older. Barthe Cortes looks no more than 33 years old, his skin is burned by the sun, he has blue eyes and a handsome face. He speaks first - he says that he found out from (here he says the name of the guy who put us in touch) that I was looking for him in the city, he asks me what I want; when I reply that I am a reporter from ** New YorkTimes**, I suddenly feel from him some difficult to define reluctance. It's obvious that he doesn't like journalists. I want to ask him why he doesn't like journalists and if he has something to hide. I an trying to ask one of the questions, but at the same time through the window I see a man running and cocking a rifle pointed at us, while a few other people around him do the same. A handful of helpless people retreat into more hidden places.My voice hangs up unconsciously, I am not able to finish the question because I am intensively thinking whether they are going to start shooting at us in a moment. Suddenly, Cortes tells the driver to pull over, he gets out of the car and gives the driver some instructions. It is at this moment that I lose this unique opportunity to make an interview with one of the most inaccessible to the media people in the world, but someone who has never been to Somalia, in the most dangerous region of the world will never understand the overwhelming power of the sense of danger, when you feel death through your skin - even to an experienced reporter this is something paralysing.
During this one day I saw a lot of suffering, violence, I discovered the taste of fear; although I failed to make the interview, I found out much about  myself and about the nature of people. When I was on the plane going back to USA it was only at the altitude of several kilometres, where I could not be reached by the warriors anymore, that the feeling of relaxation and animal joy of life came to me. After real threat, after the feeling of tension and maintaining my senses in highest vigilance, I am finally able to afford the luxury of feeling as a man free from stress. While flying on the plane I realise I have the comfort of returning to my country where no war is going on, except for the war of gangs in the streets, but down there I am leaving people for whom war, shootings and violence are something they experience daily. They never know whether they will make it till tomorrow. They cannot get on the plane and return to a safe land, except for Cortes - he could, but he hasn't done that, God only knows why.
by J.Miller/NYT | 2008
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