THE CITY OF DEATH

                    

                            

          

                      Rat-tat-tat-tat !!                     

      Gunshots crackle overhead

  But they don’t take cover

               Because in the alley they lie dead

         In their own pool’s of blood

                                          The remnants are exiled in their bullet riddled houses

                           Whimpering

                           Shivering

                              Whispering

                           Some wetting their pants

                                  Only emerging in the evening

                                     For another round

                                     To bury their dead

                  ‘White washed mosques and minarets

                 Avenues lined with palms running down to a sparkling sea

                       'Mogadishu had a gentler past’

                    Abdul, my guide, reminisced with a half smile

                     I ducked as a rocket swooshed above my head

                      But Abdul did not move

                     His only concern: ‘there will be more bodies to wash and bury’

                       Mogadishu: abandoned and alone

                       Mogadishu: neglected and isolated

                       Mogadishu: the most battered and fought over city

                       Mogadishu: Africa’s Baghdad, the city of death

                   Her hospitals hopelessly understaffed

                Food painfully expensive

                         But her sons lavish in ecstasy in foreign cities

                      While her elite constantly bickering and plotting to steal donor funds

                                War weary

                               War torn

                              But cautiously upbeat

                              Maybe her good days are not yet