By: Aweys Isak
In the summer of 2007, as Mogadishu trembled under the weight of war, a baby girl named Zahra entered the world.
She bestowed upon me the honor of becoming an uncle; She is my brother’s daughter and her birth was one of the only joyful moments in a year marked by chaos, fear, and unimaginable pain.
On that same year, despite the devastating chaos, I was completing high school in a city at war.
The Mogadishu of 2007 was a place of daily death. Ethiopian troops, backed by Ugandan forces under the African Union forces, were locked in fierce clashes with insurgents.
The Transitional Federal Government, formed a few years then, was weak and contested, struggling to hold the fragile country together. Sadly, civilians paid the price. Every street bore scars of battle. Every home in Mogadishu knew grief.
As Zahra came into the world, I was trying to finish my academic journey amidst the adversity — sitting for my high school final exams as artillery shells landed nearby. I wasn’t worried about passing, but seeing the next day.
Our exam locations were never fixed. We took tests in three or four different buildings over seven chaotic days, moving from place to place as fighting erupted around us.
I still remember the horror of one night in Bakara neighbourhood, around 2 a.m., when the entire area was jolted awake by a barrage of mortar fire. The Ethiopian troops had shelled large sections of the city. That night, a boy from our neighbourhood, Hassan Abtidon was seriously injured, and his mother, brother, and cousin were killed in their sleep — struck by a mortar as they lay in their home. That moment shattered his life. He later joined the Islamist group al-Shabaab. I believe it was grief, not ideology, that pushed him down that path — and I’ve seen many others follow the same road for the same reason. For many young men, the road to militancy was paved with grief and unanswered pain.
That same year, my classmate and neighbor, Abdullaahi Hassan Siyad Dhagaqoob, was killed by Ethiopian forces. He had been a bright, kind soul — a friend whose life was cut short before it even had the chance to bloom. Dozens of others I knew were either killed or maimed in 2007. Our classrooms were filled with grief. Our youth were trapped in the battles they knew nothing about.
Yet somehow, we carried on. We took our exams while bullets flew overhead. Teachers whispered through trembling voices. Students held pens in hands that had just buried their siblings.
Contrastingly now, in June 2025, Zahra has completed her final high school exams. No mortars, no soldiers. Just laughter and relief. She posed for photos with her friends, her eyes full of hope, her smile wide and unafraid. When I saw those photos, I stopped. I stared at them, and suddenly, I was 18 again — walking through rubble to get to an exam, praying that the gunfire would pause just long enough for me to finish a sentence.
Zahra’s joy reminded me how far we’ve come.
Her celebration isn’t just hers. It belongs to all of us who dreamed of a Somalia where young people could finish school in peace. Her freedom to smile, to celebrate, to take pictures on the last day of school — that is something we never had.
Somalia is still fragile. There are still deep wounds to heal. But Zahra’s story proves that progress, however slow, is real. A child born in the ashes of war now walks forward unafraid.
Her journey gives meaning to mine. Her peace honors those we lost.
And her future is the light we never stopped believing in.
Aweys Isak is a Somali journalist and development practitioner. He previously served as a political analyst with the UN in Somalia.