Somalia revival

In my early days reporting for Reuters in Somalia, I remember hearing two militiamen saying how they missed each others head in a battle field earlier that morning when they disrupted our sleep with barrages of mortar bombs, heavy artilery and bursts of automatic fire. The same afternoon, as we sat outside my office sipping sweet Somali tea, two adversaries who fought against each other earlier "Warya, did you see how I missed your head by inches?" quipped one of the militiamen. His supposed victim's response was even colder, like in thriller movies. "Was that you? - Ooh my, I think my shot also whizzed past you as well. You lucky enemy you nearly took me out!" They then laughed it off and immediately changed their topic of discussion to speak about business as if nothing happened! Well that is Somalia for. Recently, the Federal Government in Mogadishu dispatched hundreds of troops to Somalia's southern-most fishing town of Ras Kamboni bordering Keny...

Somehow miraculously, mass killings by the blood-letting extremists across the world suddenly went mute during the Corona virus pandemic. It was as if the terrorists and murderers had gone on leave, their killings and bloodshed suddenly stopped, perhaps put on hold or halted by COVID-19. Gruesome images of children, women and men dismembered by bombs, suicide attacks or military? strikes from Yemen, Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan or Somalia suddenly reduced, instead those bloody images were taken over by cases of corona virus which was then the biggest news in the world. As much as the whole world was worried of COVID-19, and they had a reason to get worried looking at its deadly symptoms, those poor people whose blood the terrorists had been spilling for years somehow got a reprieve. If I were to chose between Corona and the blood-letting vagabonds - as crazy as it might sound I would happily choose Corona! For the simple reason of their after-effects. Al-Kabaab bombs kills dozens at...