The PJAK, or the (Partiya Jiyana Azad a Kurdistane) is a militant Kurdish nationalist group based in northern Iraq that has been carrying out attacks against Iranian forces in the Kurdistan Province of Iran.

In retaliation, Iranian bombings intensified in late May 2010 and have led to the displacement of more than 500 Kurdish families, wounded an unknown number of villagers and killed a teenage girl.

Iranian border guards have also targeted their livestock and sometimes fired at the villagers themselves. Firing artillery shells into populated areas, especially where there are no military targets and targeting livestock are serious violations of the laws of war.

With their villages destroyed and livestock killed, innocent Kurdish civilians have fled their border villages to crowded refugee camps in Erbil and Sulaimaniyah provinces. Aid organizations and local municipalities have struggled to meet the displaced families’ basic needs.

This story has been covered just shortly after the Iranian forces have shelled the Qandil Mountains on 24 Aug 2010. The IDP camp is located near the town of Ranya, Iraqi Kurdistan.

Ijen caldera is one large crater that has much sulfur, which lies hidden between sheer walls of deeply furrowed rock of Ijen Volcano. This volcano emits gasses through fumaroles inside the crater and the miners trapped the gasses through stone and ceramic pipes to condenses the gasses into a molten pure sulfur and then, load up as much as they can carry for the several kilometers to the weighing station. The amount of money that these miners take home approximately 5 USD, for the whole day. It means three times loading for about 60 kg molten sulfur from bellow to the weight station.

Adishi villagers gather at the local cemetery for the ceremony of remembrance of the dead.

“Tonight starts the remembrance of the spirits’ holiday. Let’s praise the souls of the dead!” Mamuka Qaldani, a thirty-eight-year-old livestock herder from Georgian mountain village of Adishi, proposes a toast at the local cemetery and then belts down a shot of vodka. Representatives from all families of the village are also here – on that very day the souls of the dead from each family should be invited home to live there along with the living for a week.

Villager propose a toast for the spirits of the dead to ask them for help.

Villagers leave the cemetery for their homes. It is believed that spirits follow them.

For these seven days spirits are believed to live in families, sharing the table and warmth of the house with them. For a week the living try not to produce any loud noise in order not to disturb precious “guests.” But feasting with the dead does little to stop Adishi’s own decline. Located more than 2,000 meters high in Georgia’s Svaneti region, Adishi has a rapidly decreasing population. For centuries, Svaneti’s harsh winters and natural disasters have been pushing people out of villages like Adishi. Once a place of more than fifty families, there are only nine families left there now. In 1987, after avalanches hit, nearly all of Adishi’s residents were resettled in Georgia’s eastern region of Kakheti, where the Soviet government built houses for them in a valley.

On the second day of Deads' Week every family should slaughter a pig for holiday table.

Those, who still remain are left to deal with everyday life by themselves – snowplows rarely clean the road to the village. Villagers have to cut their way through the snow to ride 9 kilometers on horseback to the nearest village. Renting a car from there to the region’s central town Mestia costs around $60. In Georgia, where the living-wage is roughly $80 such expenses are something to consider in a low-income village. “Say I need to do such trips three or more times a month. For this, I need to put aside 500 lari. Do I have such money? That means I need to sell a cow or something. I have children. What if they get sick or need something? I will need to run back and forth all the time then! But how?” says Adishi resident Mamuka Qaldani.

Adishi resident Mamuka Qaldani prepares a feast table at his house.

Margo Qaldani, a former teacher at Adishi school, at her house. She says that school, shut down in Adishi a decade ago, could possibly save the village from desertion.

Recent tourism boom in highland regions gives chance to the mountain villages to survive. In summers it gives some basic money to Adishi’s nine families. But at the same times it is the stick of two ends: tourism helps villagers survive, but it also may wash the traditions and change the centuries-old lifestyle. While the affect of the tourism on region’s mentality and cultural heritage is a matter of an anthropological research, some undesirable results may be visible in a short run already: used to the seasonal big money that comes from tourists villagers will leave the mountains for the valley during the winters. But due to the harsh winter colds, those houses that are not warmed from inside will crack and crumble away. “Here a couple of winters are enough to destroy a house that is not looked after. In the winter, if nobody looks after the village, it will look like those ruined houses you see around here. Adishi will turn into ruins,” says Qaldani.

Bauchi and Natalia Qaldanis, the eldest people in Adishi, saw the firewood in front of their house.

Svan village elder.

Fewer and fewer families remain to host their ghostly kin. It may be just a matter of a few years before the spirits of Adishi’s ancestors — along with their descendants — will have no homes left to call their own.

Most of the houses in Adishi are ruined or will be such in a few years.

Mamuka Qaldani prays in one of Adishi's churches during Deads' Week.

Mamuka Qaldani overlooks Adishi from the nearby hill.

Adishi at night. Lights illustrate how few people live there now compared to what it used to be.

Pantsula culture was born some time in the 1950’s and 60’s in the townships of South Africa. It initially refered to a style of dress but grew into a culture and eventually a dance form. By the 1980’s when the townships were in flames and Apartheid police were at war with young black men in the streets across South Africa, Pantsula dance became a popular form of expression, rebellion and commentary.

In post Apartheid South Africa Pantsula culture has now become an important voice of the youth and offers opportunities to young men who otherwise have almost no support.

The Real Action Crew live in Orange Farm, about 45km outside of Johannesburg in a community who have been battling for basic resources like running water and electricity since residents first started moving there in the late nineteen eighties.

With a massive unemployment rate amongst the youth of South Africa, especially in Orange Farm
where there are very few opportunities, its significant that the young men who are part of Real Action and other Pantsula crews across the country are managing to make a living from dancing.

I started this documentary project a few months before, and now realize that this project will be a long term project, maybe a life project…

The people with disabillities and special needs, and particularly the people there, knows how to give and they give very easily their smile, their hart, their trust…

I understood that the problem how to approach them was a problem only from me, not from them. Once, one of my new friends said to me: “You are here and this, for me, is everything!”

Beach for people with special needs

Beach for people with special needs

Beach for people with special needs

Beach for people with special needs

Beach for people with special needs

Beach for people with special needs

Beach for people with special needs

Beach for people with special needs

Beach for people with special needs

Bullfighting–known in Mexico as Fiesta Brava, made its debut in Mexico City, on June 26th 1526, with the first bullfight in honor of Hernan Comes, on his return from Las Hibueras which is now Honduras. Throughout the three centuries that Spain ruled Mexico, bullfights were held regularly to honor city and religious celebrations.

The object of bullfighting is for the bullfighter (matador) to “conquer and kill the bull with a swift clean kill by placing a sword in a coin-sized area between the bull’s shoulders.” For this reason, it takes extreme courage and many hours of training to become a matador. In reality, bullfighting cripples one out of four matadors during their careers. One out of ten die.Advocates of bullfighting argue that if the matador aims correctly, the animal dies in a matter of seconds. This type of quick, clean death, however, is not the norm. In most cases, the matador misses the target, injuring the bull’s lungs and bronchial tubes, causing blood to flow and bubble through the animals mouth and nose. 
Bullfighting is a type of dramatic dance with death. As he would in dancing, the matador must control his movements — maintaining the rhythm, not of music, but of danger.In the bullfighting arena, one little mistake by the matador could mean death.

In every corida de toros, matadors kill four to six bulls. Watching one isn’t for the faint hearted. In an average afternoon session, three matadors each fight two bulls. The fight begins as the bull is released into the ring and the torero or bullfighter’s assistant takes a few passes of the bull with his cape, to gauge the reactions of the bull. Then picadors riding horses enter the ring and draw the first blood then exit the ring.
The traditional cape work with the bull then follows, with each pass of the cape being accompanied by a hearty cry of “Ole!” from the crowd. The matador kills the bull in a ritualistic manner by thrusting a lethal blow of the sword deep into the bulls back. A judge scores the killing, and if not done perfectly, it could bring shame upon the matador.
The largest bullring in Mexico, seating 60,000, is the Plaza Mexico in Mexico City. The season there lasts from November to March. Novillades, featuring novice matadors and young bulls, are held from June to October.

Today Bullfighting generates heated controversy in many areas of the world, including Mexico. Supporters of bullfighting argue that it is a culturally important tradition, while animal rights groups argue that it is a blood sport because of the suffering of the bull and horses during the bullfight.

Only time will tell whether bullfighting will eventually pass away  from the world…

All photos by Rafael Ben-Ari/Chameleons Eye

Chameleons Eye- Israel Photo Agency

http://www.israelnews.chameleonseye.com

LGBT Flag, Before setting off the March

LGBT pride or gay pride is the concept that lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people should be proud of their sexual orientation and gender identity. The movement has three main premises: that people should be proud of their sexual orientation and gender identity, that diversity is a gift, and that sexual orientation and gender identity are inherent and cannot be intentionally altered. The use of the abbreviated gay pride and pride have since become mainstream and shorthand expressions inclusive of all individuals in various LGBT communities.

The word pride is used in this case an antonym for shame, which has been used to control and oppress LGBT persons throughout history. Pride in this sense is an affirmation of ones self and the community as a whole. The modern “pride” movement began after the “Stonewall riots” in 1969.

Instead of backing down to unconstitutional raids by New York Police, gay people in local bars fought back. While it was a violent situation it also gave the underground community the first sense of communal pride in a very well publicized incident. From the yearly parade that commemorated the anniversary of the Stonewall riots began a national grassroots movement. Today many countries around the world celebrate LGBT pride. The pride movement has furthered the cause of gay rights by lobbying politicians, registering voters and increasing visibility to educate on issues important to LGBT communities. LGBT pride advocates work for equal “rights and benefits” for LGBT people.

Symbols of LGBT pride include the LGBT rainbow flag, butterfly, the Greek lambda symbol, and the pink as well as black triangles reclaimed from their past use.

Frank Polson, an artist and carver tries to make a living out of his tribe mystical culture

Text and photography: Marc-André Pauzé

“Anishnabe Life” is the second part of a work in progress project. Photojournalist and nurse specialized in backcountry medecine, Marc-Andre Pauzé will report from various canadians indigenous communities in a in-depth documentary, to document daily life and First Nations actual realities.

Occupied territories. When we ear about these land lost to political turmoil, we often think about Palestine, Gaza or other far away places. But Anishnabe are living on occupied territories as internally displaced people in Canada.

Internally displaced people (IDPs), as we learn on the UNHCR website, are people forced to flee their homeland without crossing an international border due to armed conflict, generalized violence, human rights violations or environmental disasters.

The Algonquin People, or Anishnabe as they call them self, are  an Amerindian First Nation of Canada. They were once living in the vast laurentian forest of Quebec as a hunter-gatherer society. For the last century, canadian government established reserves trying to settle these nomads, forcing them to rely on the government support to sustain a living.

Up until a few decades ago, the government forced children to leave their families and sent them to residential school, where they could not speak their language. Two years ago, the Prime Minister Harper apologized for these past mistakes. But sequels of these situation, among others, are still present.

Elizabeth Makimoot, 78, live alone in her house. Speaking only her native language, she feels lonely. Very few of the younger generation still speaks Anishnabe language, creating a gap with the elders and contribute to loss of traditional values where women were respected. First Nation People believed that women share the same spirits that Mother Earth.

With the intensified presence of settlers and the desire to return to traditional activities, some communities left these reserves and squatted on land that was once theirs. They encountered conflicts with land exploitation by the new comers.

These aboriginals are among the poorest citizens of a country member of the G8, often living in conditions not dislike what one can find in some developing countries.

The Anishnabe (Algonquin) of the Long Point First Nation in northern Quebec has been repeatedly uprooted over the last century to make way for colonial and agricultural development at first and now for industrial development of their lands. They now live on a half a square kilometer plot of land known as the Winneway community.

Because the community has lost access to much of its traditional land, and activities, it created new health and social problems with greater dependence on welfare.

With the loss of land access, they also lost cultural references, language and values. Poverty, unemployment, use of drugs and alcohol, are among social issues that are the foundation of violence and self-destructive habits in native community.

Nelson King tries to find a hunting ground as his ancestral forest is being destroy by logging companies.

The Anishnabe of Winneway have never given up any rights to their lands. They are excluded from decisions about the use of their traditional lands and it has led to anger and social problems. These negative feeling have been passed to younger generations and result in a broken spirit for the Anishnabe peoples.

Rosalyne Mathias, 60, crushed by emotions, she takes a moment to hug the tree that grew at the exact spot where she miscarriages, 43 years ago, after having made a circle of cedar leafs around the tree. After many sexual agression between age 15 and 17, she got pregnant. Too afraid to talk to her parents, she went alone in the wood to abort. 43 years later, she return on the site to have a ceremeony and hope to find peace.

According to an Amnesty International Study, “the exclusion of the community from decision-making ignores (…)  a series of judgements of the Supreme Court of Canada. They state that federal and provincial governments have a constitutional obligation to consult Aboriginal peoples and accommodate their concerns in every decision that could affect their rights. The exclusion of the Anishnabe also disregards the international human rights principle that the free, prior, and informed consent of Indigenous peoples must be obtained, especially in decisions affecting their lands and resources.”

Rosalyne Mathias near a damm over the Winneway River. In their ancestral culture, women were respponsable of the water forces. She also believes that there exclusion from decisions about the use of their traditional lands has led to anger and social problems. These negative feeling have been passed to younger generations and result in a broken spirit for the Anishnabe peoples.

Canada, with USA and Australia, still refuse to sign the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, although the 3 March 2010 Speech from the Throne, in Ottawa, includes the following:

“We are a country with an Aboriginal heritage. A growing number of states have given qualified recognition to the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. Our Government will take steps to endorse this aspirational document in a manner fully consistent with Canada’s Constitution and laws.”

Even though they have been sharing the same country for 400 years, very few canadians visit amerindian communities, and they don’t know them. There are few modern documents of their daily life.

After having spent many months documenting the Anishnabe community situation in 2008, I returned in may 2009, with Amnesty International and on my own since then, to continue that documentation work. Here’s the result, so far, from these reporting, focusing on other dimensions, apart from statistics about social issues or folklore imagery.

Ref: http://www.amnistie.ca/content/view/12919/476/

Jimmy Brazeau help Ricky Chief skin a moose in his house. Even though they have modern houses, they still have bush camp habits.

Ronald Chief, 73, lives alone in his wooden house. Having health problems, he manage to take care of himself. He once knew the free life of the amerindian way of hunting, fishing and gathering but now he is witness of the slow desintegration of his cultural roots as younger generations are confused and lost. From the ancient ways he kept bush camp habit of hanging plastic bags on the wall, heating with a wooden stove and letting the fresh air coming in by opening windows and doors even in winter.

Game skin hung under the porch roof to make rawhide that will serve for snowshoes lacing.

Ralph Mathias preparing a bear skin to dry.

Ralph Mathias, 47, after having killed a bear, will prepare the pelt to dry in his courtyard..

"Poncho" Mathias prepare wood for next winter. When the wood pile arrive, the site is out-limit. Some men then come to work there and provide out of firewood, the elder ones and the unmarried mothers. Then the remainder of the community can come to take the restl.

Over the last two governments held by Evo Morales in Bolivia, the issue on Coca has been a crucial one, the president who was a mayor Coca syndicalist has tried to change the bad image and reputation of the leaf that has been cultivated long before the Inca Empire. No matter how big the efforts on producing medicinal products, cosmetics amongst others and to control the production of coca leaf for consumption, still a 30-40% of the national production goes to cocaine production and narcotraffic.

Coroico -at the gate to the Beni district- has a tradition (from slavery times) of fine Coca production, it’s conveniently located a couple of hours from La Paz, were most of the cocaine labs are and were it’s distributed as well.

The few detractors of Evo argue that the government’s plans are being financed with drug money. The drug leaders, also linked to the government, are gaining more and more power leading to huge corruption which directly affects the people who try to make a living and who struggle daily in one of Latin Americas worst living standard countries.

“That is, in the UN’s terms, a crisis … But because it’s been a similarly awful picture for such a long time, the crisis warning bell no longer produces the fire brigade”, Paul Smith-Lomas , Oxfam GB’s east Africa director.

Somalia presents the single largest humanitarian challenge in the world. “Over 3.6 million people, or half of Somalia’s population, are currently in desperate need of aid. In terms of numbers of people, access to any form of social welfare or livelihood choices, and the apparent intractability of it (the conflict in Somalia), it is the most pressing concern in humanitarian terms that we have globally”, Jane Cocking the humanitarian director for OXFAM GB said.

In the past 21 years, the country has lived through droughts and famines, wars and conflicts, massive population displacements, appalling human rights violations and state orchestrated terror. These conditions continue to devastate the country. Civilians without any other options are pouring into impoverished camps in neighbouring Kenya, Ethiopia and Yemen. In Somalia, 1.3 million persons are living in makeshift camps, without assistance from humanitarian agencies or from the UN

Robbert Van den Berg, Oxfam International’s spokesman for the Horn of Africa, describes the conditions in the refugee camps as “barely fit for humans”. The UN Food Security and Nutrition Analysis Unit for Somalia, issued a report on Tuesday, August 25, 2009 saying Somalia is now in its worst humanitarian crisis for 18 years.

Operation Inshallah

Somali warlords and Islamic insurgents have been powerful enough to drive out foreign troops serving under the United Nations, including Americans, Germans, French and Norwegians. But none of them were strong enough to kill the others.

In a state of total destitution, were its population depends solely on a small amount of international relief aid, the Transitional Federal Government, headed by the previous chairman of the Islamic Courts Union, a former school teacher and once a head wanted by the Bush Administration, President Sheikh Sharif, is now, with support from his old American enemies, planning a major offensive against his old insurgent friends.

Sheik Sharif is a thinking man. He is 45 years old, but today, without his long beard, wearing special tailored blue dresses and expensive diamond engraved watches, he looks younger. After almost being killed during an American air strike in 2006, Sheikh Sharif managed to escape to Kenya and asked for political protection. Almost 3 years later he was invited to meet Mrs Hillary Clinton, the United States Secretary of State, who said “We believe that his government is the best hope we had, for quite sometime, for a return to stability and a possibility for progress in Somalia.” Sheik Sharif had moved back to Mogadishu. He left behind in Kenya the Kalashnikov and the simple clothes he used to wear when he tried to convince the rest of the world that his Islamic courts were not a treat, dismissing any accusation of links with Al Qaeda or any terrorist organisation.

Somalia struggles to rescue its identity from a deleterious war, and Sheik Shari, tried to be more than just a cosmetic treatment in his country´s mutilated face. He promised he would be able to produce profound facial and moral reconstruction. After only one year as president, he has already understood the treatment might be harder than he previously thought.

He lives isolated in Villa Somalia, a fortress constructed during the days of Italian colonial rule. The first entrance is guarded by doubtful soldiers from the new Somali Army. Young men, mostly in their early 20’s or younger, some wearing light brown, oversized military uniforms with sandals, others, in the best Rambo style, with their chests shielded by bullet-belts, ready to feed their rusted Chinese-made Kalashnikovs. They spend the days together, protecting their boney faces from the sulphurous East African sun under an old, improvised tarp shelter. In Mogadishu, soldiers with khat-fuelled values are one hundred dollars a month loyal to anyone and therefore, the president cannot trust to leave his own men to go beyond the first gate. From there, only high-level government officers and African Union soldiers can enter.

The UN sent the African Union Soldiers to Mogadishu (AMISOM) to replace the invading Ethiopian army. They have been in Mogadishu for 3 year with a peacekeeping mandate, but there is no peace to keep and the AU soldiers are constantly in close fighting with insurgents wearing civilian clothes. Their weapons, powerful and destructive, are not engineered to make distinctions in their targets. During its years in Mogadishu, AMISOM has been responsible for the death of many civilians.

Under the same protection but in separate houses, are the president’s three wives living with their respective children. The president is a very busy man administrating an area the size of a small middle class condominium with protocols of a nation. He has little liberty to move around his fortress. Bullets are constantly flying over people´s heads, leaving signs of destruction on almost every wall. His own home is ironically on the top of a hill, less than a kilometer away from Bakara Market, the area controlled by Al Shabaab. From his veranda, if he were allowed to go out, he would be able to see his enemies running and shooting.

Discouraged by the slow or non-existent political or social progress in Mogadishu, some government officials express their frustration with cynicism and refer to the president’s plans to attack his enemies as “Operation Inshallah,” because it will only begin when Allah wants it to. Although the new Somali Army has some 9,000 soldiers, the president can only depend on a few units. Many soldiers desert, because there are no officers and no safe barracks, and all too often, there is no pay. Some sell their weapons to the enemy, while others mow each other down in battles between clans.

New soldiers are being trained, in Kenya, Uganda and Sudan, partly with the help of the Americans and the European Union. But no one knows yet whether they will ever arrive in Mogadishu, or whether they will fight on the president’s side.

People dying like ants stepped on.

Mohammed Yusuf Hassan is the chief physician at the Medina hospital, the best working hospital in Mogadishu thanks to the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) support. We met for the first time almost one year ago on an African Express flight leaving Mogadishu to Nairobi and become good friends. Mohammed is an interesting and somehow inspiring person. He could be living a good life in Europe but decided to come back to Mogadishu and help in any way. Mohammed studied medicine in La Sapienza university of Rome. He is officially retired and could be enjoying life near his grandchildren, but he is not a normal person. ‘I can’t be normal, or else I wouldn’t be here’ he says smiling. The Medina is a complex of pre-fabricated green containers and flat-roofed buildings in a park behind an old gate, where blood red flamboyant trees provide shade.

The shadows produced by those beautiful trees are welcomed by patients with normal diseases like little Mohammed. He is 3 years old and has been diagnosed with leukaemia. Patients like him have to lie underneath the trees, because the corridors inside are full of patients with open bullets wounds that could be infected if the patients were kept outside.

Doctor Mohammed really inspires me. He is 51, but he looks at least 15 years older and is clearly exhausted. “Everything here is bad. We Somalis are all traumatized. You can die any day. We are like ants that are being stepped on, a forgotten people. Darfur is a paradise compared to Mogadishu. But Darfur is new and we are old. The children have always been dying here, and no one sees it anymore.”

“An entire generation has grown up in this war,” he says, “and that several generations will never get it out of their heads. This too explains why there is no end to the suffering.”

Short-lived lives.

I´m invited to film a birth and I feel happy. I imagine a happy birth in my mind and I prepare my camera to capture the moment when the mother meets her baby for the first time. I never ask any question about her. My need to experience a moment of beauty was too strong. She is crying and the labor seens not to start. After a short meeting, the doctors decide to operate on the mother. She is young and after she receives the epidural anesthesia, her words make no sense and her eyes show no more pain. I move from my position to give the doctors better space to work. A young Iraqi doctor is leading the team. I´m impressed, she looks very small and does not want to talk or even tell me her name, but she shows total control over the situation.

Unexpectedly, at least for me, the door opens violently and a group of noisy, anguished young men enter the room pushing a stretcher. They say in Somali something that I cannot understand in words, but that I can feel in volume is call for help. On the stretcher I can see a scrawny body writhing in convulsions. His clothes, pale jeans, sandals and a short-sleeved beige shirt are soaked in a mixture of dark blood and dusty red sand. He is not older than 20 and he was shot in the neck, just bellow his month, his hemorrhagic wound making it impossible for him to breathe. The Iraqi doctor orders two of her Somali assistants to take care of him as she is trying to get through the diverse layers of muscle in the mothers belly and reach the baby´s head. They try to help the man with a tracheotomy. There is no time for anesthesia or proper preparation, and, without a sound, he shows his pain by hitting the wall, the table and the doctors with his feet and weak arms. I feel stressed and I don´t know what to film. The birth or this dying man I know nothing about. Moments later destiny gives me an orientation and he dies. I feel I can concentrate on my first idea of happiness again and I see a very small girl coming out to this world for the first time. She is rapidly moved to another table by a nurse holding the little body head down. I try to see if the mother is ok and go back to the baby. I see another Iraqi doctor trying to stimulate her heart and lungs. I´m not an expert but I find the shape of her head strange. The nurse leaves the little body over the small table, near some surgical tools used by the doctors trying to save the boy. I ask what is happening and a nurse says that the little girl is dead.

I go back to Hassan and try to find the boy´s name. He operates on young men, again and again, and eventually many end up dead. “Sometimes I think that we are just repairing guns here, guns that are reused until they break. And that the man we are operating on today could shoot a child tomorrow.” I start to understand why he says he is not a normal person. If this is a normal day at Medina Hospital, how can a man like Hassan keep his sanity?

The French Prime Minister Georges Clemenceau, said once that “War is a series of catastrophes that results in a victory.”

For 20 years, no one has been strong enough to claim victory in Somalia, and the country´s humanitarian catastrophe will only continue. The UN and African Union officers estimate that about 1,000 people, mostly civilians, die each month in the struggle for Mogadishu in a senseless civil war.