Mogadishu is the capital city of Somalia where more than 1.5 million of people are live in. after the civil war wrenched in Somalia, Mogadishu hosted so many conflicts and clashes among the former warlords which caused to downplay and degrades the infrastructure including the streets due to the conflict. According to the International Journal of Injury Control and Safety Promotion Journal published in 2004, worldwide, nearly 1.2 million people are killed in road traffic crashes every year and 20 million to 50 million more are injured or disabled. These injuries account for 2.1% of global mortality and 2.6% of all disability-adjusted life years (DALYs) lost. Low- and middle-income countries account for about 85% of the deaths and 90% of the DALYs lost annually. Without appropriate action, by 2020, road traffic injuries are predicted to be the third leading contributor to the global burden of disease. In this regard, since 1991 when the civil war erupted in Somalia, there were no any official developmental projects towards improving the infrastructure.
In 2011 there was a project which is called DANGUUD under transitional initiative stabilization (TIS) which funded by USAID along with local and international partners including IOM. This program was hosted by in domestic level, the Banadir Regional Administration (BRA) and it is all about rebuilding Somalia, although it was confined only the capital city of Mogadishu. In the mean time, when the worst famine/drought happened in the history in Somalia in 2011 and killed an immense people, the president of Turkey His Excellency Erdogan arrived in Mogadishu which stunned the whole world, the government of turkey started to offer humanitarian assistance along with developmental projects in Somalia including rebuilding the roads, the airport, the seaport and the government ministries. Many roads were repaired, the seaport of Mogadishu was repaired, Aden Abdulle international airport was repaired and new terminal was added. From that time, the world particularly the regional and international organizations commenced to give attention the country, and many of them started a pilot projects such as Capacity Injection Project which is leading by the World Bank. This consecutive developments led to reparation the hope of the people as longest the country is recovering from nearly three decades of conflicts, lack of functioning authority and lack of rule and law. Currently the country is evolving and getting better day after a day. With all these developments, there is in the mean time a regular traffic accident which takes place Mogadishu and causes death and injury. If I immerse especially this part, many of Mogadishu people use the central and the cornerstone road of Mogadishu which is called (Maka-Almukarama) for different justifications including security reason, so the road becomes overwhelmed due to the traffic jam especially the busiest junctions in Mogadishu namely Dabka junction, Taleex junction, Zobe/14 October junction and others. Because public transportation and luxury cars are simultaneously using this road which increased the burden. The other remarkable and fetching issue is, the government’s armed vehicles, particularly what Somalis is called (Cabdibille) and the heavy cars of the African Mission of Somalia (AMISOM) are also mainly using this road. So, there is a drastic traffic accident which takes place in this road, especially TUK-TUK transport which is recently emerging and working
many parts of Somalia particularly Mogadishu. And the other painful thing is, sometimes when the traffic jam become over and over, an explosions takes place and causes a massive damage including death, injuries and other livelihood damage.
The other side of the coin, there is another big problem which mostly the media platforms don’t cover, which is the damage of the road traffic accident! Sometimes the federal government imposes tough rules towards tightening the security, and during those days the government’s troops kill many people, mostly the TUK-TUK drivers, because the troops are tended to drive their armed vehicles over speed and without respecting the cars of the people including the public transportation, so they open a fires any car which they get suspicion so as prevent and evade reaching them, and this unripe actions leads a death and injury. Some people can’t afford to pay the amounts to cure their relatives if they get injury for sack of their lower-income.
On the other hand, the Lorries are also causes an accidents, because in our case, there is no a special roads which these large cars are allocated to use. So they use the same road which the luxury cars are using, and many times they cause an abject accident. The other problem is, the traffic guys are not available many parts of the roads, they are active only the Maka-Almukarama road, so the other roads has no traffic police.
Ways to promote the safety of the people and to downplay the potential risk of the traffic accident
* To activate the other roads in order to alleviate the burden of the Maka-Almukarama road and to stay away the risk factors.
* To activate the traffic signs in order to reduce the potential risk
* To use CC camera so as to monitor any car which is not following the order and impose a fine if he/she mistakenly breaks the rule
* To report and record any case which is related the traffic accident and share it with the government so as to take in to account and add its public policy
* To specify the Lories a special road or to order them to work only sometimes in the evening/night as many countries do in order to downgrade the traffic accidents.
Anwar Abdifatah Bashir (Freelance Journalist and Independent Researcher)
Email: anwarcade100@gmail.com
Office Network Allbanaadir.com
Nairobi-Kenya
Allbanaadir@live.com
