Life in Mogadishu
With a slightly lopsided picture of Mickey Mouse smiling behind them, children play at a hotel in Mogadishu – a city trying to heal from more than two decades of civil war and anarchy in Somalia.
But reminders of the fragility of the gains are always present, casting long shadows onto Somalia as well as the neighbouring countries. In February, al Shabaab fighters bombed a hotel in Mogadishu, killing at least 25 people. In March, their assault on another hotel left 14 people dead. On April 2, the group claimed responsibility for an attack on a Kenyan university campus in which at least 147 people were killed.
A rusty truck drives through Mogadishu.
Somali shillings are stacked in bundles at a foreign exchange bureau in Bakara market.
A currency exchange booth decorated with pictures of US dollars stands in Mogadishu’s Hamaerweyne district.
Men have their hair cut at a barber's shop in the city.
A customer sips a drink at a cafe.
People use computers at an internet cafe.
Students attend a computing class at Plasma University, with men sitting on one side and women on the other.
Girls sit on the floor during a Koranic studies lesson at a classroom in Mogadishu's Hodan district.
Boys gaze up at Sufi teacher Moalim Abdi, as he leads a lesson in Koranic studies.
A child, who is one of the roughly 1.4 million internally displaced people living in Somalia, is weighed at Banadir Hospital.
Internally displaced children suffering from cholera sleep in the paediatric ward of Banadir Hospital.
A man and his children, also refugees from elsewhere in Somalia, watch television inside their makeshift home.
An internally displaced woman stands next to her tent in Mogadishu's Bondhere district.
A boy walks through the shell of a destroyed church.
Children play on an abandoned truck in front of the remnants of the former parliament building.
A boy runs across Wadnaha street in Mogadishu's Hodan district.
Fans gather at Lujino stadium to watch a basketball final.
Children play in the swimming pool at a hotel.
Young men gather around a man building a sandcastle on Lido beach.
Labourers work at the construction site of a new petrol station
Children walk past a mosque on their way home from school in southern Mogadishu.
Somali police conduct security checks outside a restaurant at night.
