The Point Of No Return

PETTERIK WIGGERS/PANOS PICTURES FOR TIME

LAW AND DISORDER: Mogadishu's armed militias still rule the streets of the city

In Somalia, even the dead don't rest in peace. Masked gunmen, allegedly in league with the powerful Islamic courts in Mogadishu, the capital, recently laid waste to an Italian colonial cemetery. After breaking open the tombs and pulling up the coffins, they dumped the human remains near the city's decrepit airport. The Militiamen now in control of the cemetery have begun to build a mosque there. The first to discover the desecration was a group of children who picked up bones and skulls and took them away as toys. Such horrors are all too common in Somalia. "For 14 years...

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