The ghost of the AK-47 still haunts him. Mohamed, 17, was taken from his village in southern Somalia when he was 12. He doesn't remember the date. He remembers the hands that forced him into a pickup truck. He remembers the training camp. The recitation of verses twisted for war. He remembers the first time he fired a weapon. Not at a target. At a man.
“It was him or me,” he says. Flat. No emotion. That's the trauma talking.
Mohamed is one of thousands. The UN says at least 1,200 children were recruited by armed groups in Somalia last year alone. The real number is higher. Much higher. Al-Shabaab is the main culprit. But government-aligned militias are also guilty. The line between victim and perpetrator blurs when you're 12.
I meet him in a rehabilitation centre in Mogadishu. It's run by a local NGO. Sparse rooms. Barbed wire. The smell of desperation and hope. A strange cocktail.
Mohamed escaped six months ago. He walked for three days. He saw a checkpoint. Surrendered. Expected to be killed. Instead, he was handed over to the centre. He's learning carpentry now. “It helps me forget,” he says. But his eyes tell a different story. They dart. They scan. He flinches at sudden noises.
Ask him about his dreams. He says he doesn't dream. Sleep is a battlefield. Nightmares are the enemy.
His story is not unique. It is the currency of this conflict. A conflict that has raged for decades. A conflict that feeds on the young. The international community pays lip service. Resolutions are passed. Funding is announced. But the pickups still roll into villages. The guns are still handed out.
Across Mogadishu, the government struggles. Al-Shabaab controls vast swathes of the country. The African Union mission, ATMIS, is drawing down. By December 2024, Somali forces are supposed to take over. No one thinks they are ready. The fear is palpable. The vacuum will be filled by chaos. And more children will be taken.
Mohamed wants to be a teacher. “If I can teach, maybe I can stop another boy from being taken.” Noble. Naive. Necessary.
The centre has 200 beds. They have 400 boys. Girls too, but we don't see them. They are hidden. The stigma is worse for them.
I ask Mohamed what he would say to the man who pulled him from his village. He is quiet for a long time. “I would tell him I forgive him. Because if I don't, I will never be free.”
A pause. He looks at the floor. “But I hope he suffers.”
That's the reality. The trauma doesn't disappear. It's managed. Like a chronic wound.
The conflict grinds on. The children wait. The world watches. Often looks away.
This is Mogadishu. This is the frontline of a forgotten war. Live. Unfiltered. Unforgiving.
