We have a small globe of the world at home, and I was slowly turning it round before I sat down to type this. I was looking for Somalia. It is a country which I know is somewhere ‘down there, in Africa’, but every time it’s mentioned, my eyes glaze over and my mind does not even bother to register a very vague location.

I find Somalia on the rickety globe. It’s in the horn of Africa, the pointy east side of the African continent. It has the largest, most expansive coastline of all African countries. Among its neighbours there’s Kenya, where people go on safaris, and across the gulf there’s Saudi Arabia.

I Google ‘How far away is Somalia from Dubai?’ Not much actually. The capital city, Mogadishu is only a three-and-a-half-hour flight away from Dubai – so that’s like going to London from Malta, more or less.

I bring out my old archaeology text books. In antiquity, Somalia was known as The Land of Punt – the land of beautiful people who were astute rich trading partners with Egypt. They were known for exporting gold, ebony, ivory, balsams and wild animals.

If only we had a time travelling machine to witness the country then. Over the centuries, its glorious days have shrunk, withered and wasted. Political interference, power ambitions and corruption turned Somalia into a shadow of what it used to be. Actually, worse than a shadow.

Today it is a country which thrives on tribal civil wars. Bloodshed and brutality are the order of the day. In the last three decades 2.5 million people were murdered or slaughtered as they were going on about their daily lives.

It is considered to be one of the worst places in the world for vulnerable, family-less women and children – they are exploited for domestic labour and prostitution.

The majority of Somalis live in poverty and most of the population relies on international agencies to provide food, basic health, education and water services.

Millions are in need of urgent humanitarian assistance which they won’t ever get.

It’s difficult to get a job, and if you criticise the government for the country’s chaos, then you’re certain to suffer political persecution until you are murdered or slaughtered as you go about your daily life.

It is no wonder then, that Somalis flee to Kenya, Djibouti, Ethiopia, Tanzania and Burundi. Some cross the Aden Gulf, in boats falling to pieces. Others undertake the perilous journey across the sub-Saharan desert – they walk for days on end to get to Libya in the hope that from there they’d be able to reach Europe.

Many end up in horrible detention centres in Libya where they suffer sexual and physical abuse, and sometimes they are murdered or slaughtered there. But the Somalis risk their all, to escape political persecutions, to help their families back home financially, to give their children a chance of a better life.

This is the Somalia where Ismail came from. He was a man who wanted a better life. He could not go to Jobsplus or open the Classified section to find a new job. He could not get a visa to go and live in another country. The only way to do it was to seek asylum.

How can the Prime Minister sleep at night knowing that there are 100 vulnerable children on board these rescue ships?

So, he crossed the desert, endured torture, got to Libya and then forked out his lifetime savings – some €700 – for a trip on a dinghy across the Mediterranean.

There were another 14 people with him on that dinghy. No food, no water. Just a GPS. “Go to Malta,” the agent smuggler shouted as he pushed the boat with one hand, and clutched wads of money in the other. 

They lasted two days without water, then in desperation they started drinking sea water, which is fatal for kidneys. Ships, boats and helicopters passed them by.

The migrants on the boat shouted for help, none came. After five days out at sea, two of the people yearning for a better life, died. By the ninth day, 13 had died, including a pregnant woman.

Ismail and another man from Ethiopia, Mohammed, were the only survivors on that dinghy. They had to throw the faceless, nameless, rotting corpses of the other dead voyagers in the depths of the dark blue sea. On the 10th day, Ismail died.

The next day, the Armed Forces of Malta took an aerial photo, showing the corpse of Ismail in the dinghy, with Mohammed, severely dehydrated but still alive, kneeling over him. A photo so haunting that I have not been able to think of anything else this week.

Ismail’s body twisted, skeletal, emaciated lying at the bottom of that rubber dinghy afloat at sea must haunt us all.

Mohammed was winched to safety. But who was Ismail? How old was he? What oppression spurred him to undertake this perilous journey? What was his profession in his previous life? Did he leave any family behind? Did he have any children? Is his community waiting for his news?  Do they know what happened to him? What were his last thoughts?

There are no words to console his family, if they ever get the news. A cruel way to live, an even more cruel way to die. I only pray that he is resting in peace in the forever Land of Punt.

As for the rest of us, we all have blood on our hands.


While this was going on, two migrant ships – Open Arms and Ocean Viking carrying 503 people – are waiting for a country to accept them, after being refused entry by both Lampedusa and Malta. A show of force. Heartless Matteo Salvini on the one hand, who does not want to save migrants “to protect the public order” and our own Joseph Muscat.

How can the Prime Minister sleep at night knowing that there are 100 vulnerable children on board these rescue ships?   

Jay Berger, Médecins sans Frontières project coordinator on board the Ocean Viking said many of the passengers had marks of physical and psychological violence from their journey through Libya.

“We are now asking for a place of safety to disembark these vulnerable people without delay,” he said. “They have suffered enough.”

They have suffered more than enough.

krischetcuti@gmail.com
twitter: @krischetcuti

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