The paradise flower

Grown on plantations in the highlands of Kenya and Ethiopia, tonnes of khat, or qat, dubbed "the flower of paradise" by its users, are flown daily into Mogadishu airport, to be distributed from there in convoys of lorries to markets like the one pictured above.

The price of the cheap Laari khat popular in Somalia has halved to about $10 per kilogram since Britain outlawed the stimulant.

A kilogram of "Special" or "London" khat has also gone down to about $18 from $30.

Exporters of the leaves in Kenya, a former British colony where the cash crop bolsters the local economy, say the UK ban has slashed their profits from sales to Somalia.

"Britain has made our khat business useless," said Nur Elmi, a khat trader in Kenyan capital Nairobi from where shipments to Somalia have almost doubled after Britain's ban.

"They cannot afford to buy it all (in Somalia), so we sell it at throwaway prices," he said.

In Somalia, the khat business involves all sorts of people, from wholesalers down to youngsters like Ali Abdi (pictured above, right) who exist on the margins of the trade.

The 14-year-old is among a group of children who collect leftover and discarded khat at market and chew some of it while selling the rest on to customers who cannot afford to buy a higher grade of the product.

"I usually get $2 - $3 and then send it to my parents via mobile electronic voucher," said Abdi. "Life is nice and chewing khat makes you happy and hopeful."

While defenders of khat-chewing hail it as a time-honoured social tradition comparable to drinking coffee, detractors say it shares part of the blame for the violent and destructive chaos suffered by Somalia for the last 20 years.

Many Somali women point to wrecked marriages and abandoned children as testimony to the dangers of excessive use of khat.

Maryan Mohamed, pictured above, said she started chewing the leaves back in 1992.

She describes both the pleasure that khat has brought her and the many problems it has caused.

"Men who chew are not good," she said. "They chew alongside their hungry children."