The World's Most Dangerous Place (28 page)

Dysentery from contaminated food and water is a major killer in a famine, along with typhoid, cholera, malaria, dengue fever and measles. US officials estimate that 29,000 children under the age of five died between May and July 2011.

Somali shops advertise their wares with images to overcome an illiteracy rate of over 60 per cent.

Between 60 and 75 per cent of Somalis are thought to be users or sellers of
qat
, a leaf that acts like an amphetamine when chewed.

In Hargeisa (
above
) the streets are so safe that money-changers line the pavements with bundles of bank notes. Further south, however, marketplaces can be deadly, providing easy targets for terrorists (Mogadishu, 2012,
below
).

In 1920, when British Somaliland was threatened by the Dervish leader Sayyid Hassan

The RAF’s Z Force attacked his fort headquarters at Taleh

Whose modern inhabitants are still demanding compensation.

The bombing of civilian areas remains controversial, a point made by the cartoonist Amin Amir in this sketch of the Kenyan airforce in action over Kismayo in 2012.