In Yemen, Somali spreads knowledge |
Brave refugees strive for self-reliance
Somalia and Yemen don’t share much in climate, cuisine and culture. Yet Ismaeel Ahmad (24) prefers his Aden flat over the entire world.
"Even if there is a Saudi plane ready with a seat for me, I won’t leave Yemen where I live a respectful life of a mua'allim (teacher),” says Ahmad, who once longed to live in the oil-rich monarchy in the Arabian Peninsula.
He teaches English and Arabic languages to 50 odd students, Yemeni nationals and Somali refugee, boys and girls. In the ongoing batch, I have 19 students learning English and 29 Somali students seeking Arabic language speaking skills.
Ahmad, scholarship-winning student of the Mogadishu University, is making vital difference in lives of his homeless countrymen as well as the Yemeni hosts.
“While my Yemini students learn English as their second language, Somali refugees need English to communicate with their families back home via the Internet,” says Ahmad, explaining that Somali language is written in English alphabets.
The youngest among 9 siblings, Ahmad was born in Somali capital Mogadishu. He memorized the Muslim’s Holy book, Qura’an, and learnt basic mathematics from a religious school by the age of 10.
By the early 1990s, Somalia had fallen hostage to its geo-strategic setting, and multiple foreign influences fueled an Islamic insurgency. The weakening Somali government sought military support from neighboring Ethiopia in 2006 to fight against the Islamist umbrella group named Islamic Court Union in Somalia, parent body of Harakat al-Shabaab al-Mujahideen and Al-Shabab Movement.
With sole superpower United States backing the presence of Ethiopian troops, life only worsened for the any given Somali. Till todate, at least 400,000 Somali people have lost their lives while financial losses are impossible to estimate.
Ahmad’s parents feared their only child’s kidnapping at the hands of Ethiopian forces for he had grown a beard and used to wear Sunni male dress.
“Initially, my parents would not let me go the mosque for prayers for fear of conscription by Al-Shabab militia,” he recalls.
Al-Shabab used to force Somalis to practice rigid version of Shariah instead of mainstream moderate Sufi Islam.
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Sahar Nuraddin is a freelance writer with various English and Arabic language news and analysis outlets. Besides pursuing an MA English degree in Yemen’s Aden University, she is passionately involved in refugee development and integration projects in Aden city. Sahar works voluntarily with initiatives and networks like Global Change-Makers, a project sponsored by the British Council in eight Arab nations.
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