Mogadishu: The End of the World
Report by Marc Roussel
Thirty, forty years, and no sign of flagging! A civil war, a guerilla war among warlords, a war against the Islamic radicals of al-Shabaab. Somalia knows no respite. Mogadishu remains, to widespread indifference, one of the most dangerous cities in the world. Without an armed guard, it is practically impossible to reach it and get around. And so there is no one to bear witness to the Somali calvary, to the radicalization consuming Africa, or to the worrisome influence of Turkey and China.
Bernard-Henri Lévy with some of the « cent mentors » of Bancroft, the private American agency financed by the State Department which trains AMISOM’s elite commandos and manages this base straight out of a Graham Greene or Gérard de Villiers novel.
Attending the preparation of an intervention against the Islamist militias.
“And, at the entrance to what looks like a vacant lot…”
Bernard-Henri Lévy, Sur la route des hommes sans nom
“I see a group of women milling about in their colorful abayas.”
Bernard-Henri Lévy, The Will To See
“The city is nearly entirely destroyed, its collapsed buildings denuded of their concrete pillars and steel beams.”
Bernard-Henri Lévy, The Will To See
In Mogadishu.
With Gilles Hertzog (right) et Bancroft’s soldiers.
“Dawn departure for the front line of this curious war in which this mixed bag of an army sallies out to do battle with a force that is all the more fearsome for being unseizable, consisting only of shadows. A Ugandan colonel from the General Dhagabadan training camp commands our convoy.”
Bernard-Henri Lévy, The Will To See
With a unit of Amisom (African Union mission in Somalia led by Ugandan and Burundian officers) pushing back the Shebab jihadists.
“And the worst is the return trip, when you think you’re out of danger, but there’s only one route, which al-Shabaab probably mined after you passed on the way out — in which case: boom! We are issued bulletproof vests that come up to the chin. A stretch tourniquet that they show us how to tie above a wound.”
Bernard-Henri Lévy, The Will To See
“Jazeera is supposed to be the last village on the coast under Somali control.”
Bernard-Henri Lévy, The Will To See
“Points beyond are controlled by al-Shabaab, with their public executions, stonings of adulterous women, and Islamic tribunals applying sharia law.”
Bernard-Henri Lévy, The Will To See
“The goal of our mission today is to be seen. In showing ourselves, we reassure villagers that they’re on the right side.”
Bernard-Henri Lévy, The Will To See
Bernard-Henri Lévy, Richard Rouget, chef de Bancroft, et ses hommes.
“Richard Rouget, was a French lieutenant in Bob Denard’s crew of ‘Horribles.’ […] But now he’s an archly novelistic character, closer to ‘the man who would be king’ than to the standard mercenary, just as capable of reciting, at the evening barbecue, a verse from Baudelaire as a page from John le Carré.”
Bernard-Henri Lévy, The Will To See
Xooga Hospital, Mogadiscio.
Bernard-Henri Lévy at Xooga Hospital, where his fixer gave him an appointment upon his arrival in Mogadishu.
A makeshift hospital in Mogadishu.
“… kneeling above the void below, a government sharpshooter on the lookout for a rebel sniper spotted this morning by the neighborhood watch.”
Bernard-Henri Lévy, The Will To See
Meeting the sick in what remains of the hospital in Mogadishu.