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Chapter One – Sleeping
Mogadishu, Somalia
Wednesday 26th June, 2024, 8.55am
Louise Kenton walked swiftly from the Guuleed Hotel and turned right onto the busy road, adjusting her hijab as she went. The Guuleed was inside a fairly safe area of the city, a place where aid workers were often housed and where they felt some semblance of safety.
She was running late for work with ‘New Beginnings’, a multi-national humanitarian aid organisation operating in central Mogadishu. Their task was to provide food and medical assistance to people impacted by conflict. They were one of several aid organisations involved in the continuing efforts to rebuild Somalia’s shattered society. Thirty-five years of almost-continual conflict and terrorist attacks had created the necessity for humanitarian agencies from many countries.
The terrorist group, Islamic State, had been operational in the city since 2015 and had carried out many attacks. Although relatively small in number, they were a fanatical group who were still operational and capable of carrying out effective raids on the city. This fact hadn’t deterred Louise when she was offered the chance of employment as an aid worker; she was aware of previous raids Islamic State had carried out in outlying areas of the city but, personally, she had enjoyed a trouble-free year.
Louise’s interest in Islam had its roots long before arriving in Somalia but, during her time in Mogadishu, she’d also become fascinated by its history and the devotion of its followers. She had loved her year in the city, making several friends among her work colleagues and even a few of the locals.
The sky was cloudless, the temperature a very warm 30 Celsius — set to be another scorcher. Louise was feeling rather pleased with life as she reached the junction and turned right onto Jidka Janaral Daud, a wide road busy with traffic. She avoided eye contact with the Somali Army soldiers patrolling the pavement — this was not out of rudeness, but in order to comply with local religious sensibilities.
Glancing up at the clear blue sky, she set off towards the temporary recruitment offices where she worked in a small, scruffy building close to Mogadishu stadium, only a few hundred metres away.
Four minutes after stepping out along Jidka Janaral Daud, just as she hurried past the Rayan Supermarket, there was a bright flash of light, accompanied by a deafening explosion, an explosion so loud it caused crippling pain in her ears. The subsequent blast and shockwave followed a millisecond later, throwing her to the ground. She was showered with debris, as chunks of wood, brick, and glass rained down on her body.
Choking clouds of dust filled the air and for a short while there was silence, a deafening, smothering silence that lasted for several seconds, before being slowly replaced by muffled shouts, screams, and a loud ringing in her ears. Louise knew at once that a bomb had been detonated somewhere between where she now lay on the ground, and the offices where she worked.
Raising herself to her hands and knees, she became aware of chaos erupting all around her. Three Somali Army soldiers were running towards her along the route she’d just walked, guns raised, shouting instructions she couldn’t comprehend. Then, somewhere among the noise and confusion, she heard a shouted command in English.
‘Get down! Stay down!’
Louise dropped instinctively to the ground. She lay terrified on the dusty road, her breathing ragged, panic rising inside her. The temptation to ignore the order to get down and stay down but instead to stand up and run for her life, was almost overpowering.
Hearing a growing chorus of screams and shouting to her left, she looked away from the oncoming guards and turned her head back in the direction of the explosion. As the dust slowly cleared, she could see the seat of the blast was a ten-metre-wide crater, about fifty metres away, in a small market on the edge of a park.
Mutilated bodies and the tangled remains of market stalls littered the ground, market stalls that, seconds earlier, had been proudly displaying their fruit and vegetables. Louise was struggling to make sense of the terrible scene playing out before her; she couldn’t understand why nobody was stopping to help the victims. Instead of helping, people were leaping and jumping over the injured lying on the ground, begging for help. Everyone seemed to be running, some towards the stadium, and others into the park.
That’s when she saw them. Four men wearing scruffy and ill-fitting Somali Army uniforms came jogging out of a side street opposite the park, each one carrying a rifle. Louise watched, horrified, as they fired into the crowd attempting to flee their pursuit. She stared in disbelief as men, women, and children were brought down by bullets fired into their backs, while the men carrying out the shooting shouted, ‘Allahu Akbar!’ — ‘God is Greatest.’
Dressing in Somali Army uniforms had been a popular method used by terrorists for mounting attacks in Mogadishu over the years, and Louise was only too aware from her knowledge of past attacks how ruthlessly indiscriminate they could be.
At that moment, two of the terrorists turned down the street towards her while the other two crossed the road in the direction of the market and park, continuing their pursuit of the terrified crowd. She heard bullets fizzing like fireworks over her head in both directions, a sound that bizarrely reminded her of her childhood.
She now had two terrorists thirty metres to her left and three men whom she recognised as real Somali Army soldiers the same distance to her right. Then Louise froze, as one of the terrorists trained his rifle on her and fired. Immediately, she felt a searing pain across her right shoulder blade and screamed in agony. Burying her head beneath folded arms, Louise braced herself for the next impact, which would in all probability kill her.
The dizzying cacophony of sound grew louder and louder: guns being fired; the fizz of bullets carving their way through the air; the pings and dull thuds as they connected with metal, glass, concrete, mud, tarmac, and sometimes human flesh; the screaming and wailing as the horror unfolded, together with the shouting of combatants on both sides. The sounds merged and rose to a deafening crescendo.
But, for some reason, the second bullet didn’t materialise. The pain in her shoulder blade was excruciating but she steeled herself against it and braved another glance towards the terrorists. The man who’d fired at her had been hit, presumably by one of the real soldiers. He was lying on his back, rifle in his right hand. His face was turned towards Louise, eyes wide open but undoubtedly dead.
The other terrorist heading her way was crouching behind a low wall, firing at the Somali Army soldiers. Louise turned her head to look in their direction and noticed that one of them was also lying on the ground face down; she had no idea if he was dead or alive. The other two were finding cover, one behind a vehicle, the other behind the corner of a building, training their fire on the man behind the low wall, keeping him pinned down.
Out of nowhere, four men in US Army fatigues appeared and unleashed a brief hail of machine-gun fire. The terrorist crouching behind the wall was hit twice in the head and disappeared from view, presumably dead.
Louise knew there were still US Special Forces active in Mogadishu. Despite assurances from their president that they had all been withdrawn in January 2021, many had remained, chiefly for the purpose of training the Somali Army. She had seen small patrols of them fleetingly, on two separate occasions many months before, but had never actually witnessed their fearsome capabilities.
The two remaining terrorists had crossed the road and were standing on the edge of the market. They had been firing into the civilians fleeing into the park but were now training their fire at the US Marines.
One of the US soldiers ran out into the road and lay flat on the ground next to Louise, shielding her from the terrorists’ fire. As he propped himself up on his elbows, she saw the word ‘Marines’ on his shoulders and above the pocket on his chest, a name: ‘Sanders.’ He shouted something she didn’t understand in a language she assumed was Benadir, the most common language in Mogadishu.
‘I’m English!’ she shouted back.
‘For fuck’s sake, English? What the fuck are you doing here?’
Louise opened her mouth to reply but he cut her off with a wave of his hand.
‘Stay low and follow me to the corner of that building.’ He indicated a smart new-looking red brick office block on the same side of the road as the park. ‘My buddies will provide us with covering fire.’
He spoke into his radio. ‘Tango-Charlie units, Tango-Charlie units, from Tango-Charlie 4-7, covering fire on my command. Let those fucking ragheads have it! Copy?’
Louise didn’t hear the replies as the Marine was wearing an earpiece and no sound came from his radio. Her shock at his use of the phrase ‘ragheads’ was tempered by gratitude that he was saving her life.
He fixed her with a piercing gaze and shouted, ‘Remember, stay low!’ then spoke into his radio. ‘In three, two, one, COVER!’
A hail of machine-gun fire was provided by his colleagues, making the two remaining terrorists take cover as best they could.
Dragging Louise to her feet and supporting her under an armpit, he helped her swiftly to the building line and safety. The intense pain from her shoulder blade when she was lifted had been countered by a massive dose of adrenalin. She was experiencing a mixture of fear and excitement; she had never been so frightened, yet so exhilarated in her life.
Once they had reached the building and taken cover behind its corner, Louise breathed heavily several times to control the excruciating pain in her shoulder blade, before managing to say breathlessly, ‘Thank you so much, you’ve saved my life.’
He looked at her for the briefest of moments then checked on his colleagues. His next words were preceded by a sigh of weariness and exasperation.
‘This country is a fucking shit tip, lady. It’s full of sand monkeys who hate white people, especially from decent countries like ours. Take my advice. Never trust any of them and get yourself back to England, back to somewhere safe, back to civilised people.’
With that he turned, shouted a command to his colleagues and they moved off as a group, staying close to the building line for cover, exchanging intermittent fire with the terrorists as they went.
Suddenly, the two remaining terrorists ran from the market area, breaking cover and heading straight towards the US Marines screaming, ‘Allahu Akbar!’ again and again, while firing wildly at them. The immediate response was another burst of machine gun fire and they both dropped to the ground, dead.
Louise had heard of this happening on terrorist raids before. They were deliberately martyring themselves in the belief that they would be welcomed in paradise, where they would be rewarded.
The area was soon swarming with Somali Army personnel, but the Marines had disappeared as quickly and mysteriously as they’d come. Louise would never see them again.
Reaching round to feel her shoulder blade, she experienced a nauseating wave of pain and felt dampness; when she looked at her hand, it was covered in blood. The deaths of the terrorists meant people now felt confident enough to move towards the victims, as they slowly appeared from hiding places inside buildings and alleyways. It seemed that some degree of normality was gradually returning to the area.
Gingerly, she stepped out into the street and started walking painfully through the debris back towards the hotel. Her ears were still ringing and shock was beginning to kick in; she was queasy and shivering uncontrollably.
Suddenly a familiar voice made itself heard above the others, coming from the direction of the square.
‘Lulu! Lulu!’
Louise’s boyfriend, Haasim, a fellow aid worker with New Beginnings, pushed swiftly through the crowds and on reaching her, gently took her in his arms. Although contact between an unmarried man and woman in public was strictly forbidden and would normally be frowned upon, these were unusual circumstances and as Louise was clearly badly injured, Haasim was prepared to deal with the emergency, certain he wouldn’t be offending anyone.
Sleeping – Evan Baldock
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