I hope one day Somalia will be safe

We were taken to Medina Hospital in a big bus belonging to Banadir University, there were no ambulances! When we reached the hospital, it was already overcrowded. The hospital was in disarray. A surgeon examined me and said "You were very lucky, we will do observation". They did a medical dressing and gave an intravenous infusion.

After three hours in observation, I decided to go with a taxi to the SOS Hospital where our medical staff redressed my wounds very carefully and gave me antibiotics and an anti-tetanus injection (which was not given to me when at Medina Hospital, because of the many injured who needed help).

I was planning to go to Nairobi the next day for further treatment and to remove the multiple fragments in my abdomen. At the same time, a department of the UN (I don't know which) in Somalia was organising to take all injured people to Nairobi the next day.
Airlifted to Nairobi

We were airlifted from Mogadishu to Nairobi, 19 of us. One of the very badly injured was the Minister for Sports who was in coma. The rest were all graduating students and five doctors.

We were brought to hospital in Nairobi and admitted for ten days, and they removed something from my right eye, dressed my wound and immobilized my fractured hand.

Dr Tahlil was also injured and lost his right eye and they removed the fragments from his face, head and hands at the hospital. After ten days in Nairobi, the Somali government organised to move all the victims of the suicide bombing to Saudi Arabia.

I was admitted to King Saud University Hospital in Riyadh in the department of plastic surgery. There, they removed all the fragments in my abdomen, and treated all the wounds, and my shattered eardrums. The medical staff there treated me well and I made a good recovery.

Now I am ready to go back to work at the SOS Hospital in Mogadishu. I am feeling very well to go back to Mogadishu after the bomb blast. I am not scared. I know only one thing, every person must die one day but I don't now where and when it will happen.

It's my turn to help
 

I will continue to work in Mogadishu, even though I have many opportunities to work in many other places throughout the world. Innocent and vulnerable people, especially women and children, still remain inside Somalia in insecure places. They don't have enough food, clean water, permanent shelter and a primary health service. I want to add value to these people. I also know I need to help them because all my studies were done in Mogadishu and it was free, meaning it was from tax payers' money. So now is my turn to help.

I hope one day Somalia will be safe where anyone can come in at any one time and also live peacefully. I pray that peace comes quickly to the Somali people.

I want to thank all the people and organisations who still work in Somalia in this situation. I would like to say "thanks" to SOS Children's Villages International for working in Somalia and not evacuating since the war began, not forgetting all those teaching in schools and in universities. Thank you.

March 2010