A Journalist Fleeing the Hell of Militia Gangs (5)

I had always dreamt of the day I could escape from our area after Dagalo’s militia gangs pushed their violations to unimaginable extremes. But it seems fate had other plans, placing me as an eyewitness to stories and events so harrowing that I wouldn’t have believed them had someone else narrated them to me. Each day, our neighborhood was cloaked in fear and gloom. Buses filled with people leaving the area departed daily, while those who stayed behind bid farewell with tears, as if sensing the calamities the coming days held for them.

The most dreadful moments were when the gangs prepared to attack the army. They would return with truckloads of wounded and dead bodies. Then, someone would grab the mosque’s microphone and spread lies to scare the residents into staying indoors, claiming a lion had escaped from the zoo or that criminal gangs were attacking and being repelled. This was just a ploy to keep people from witnessing their dead and injured. The injured were taken to the hospital, where they would fire shots and force out all patients to make space for their wounded. Later, they would storm through the neighborhood like a hurricane, arresting, beating, killing, and humiliating anyone who dared to look at them.

For them, everyone was a suspect. A well-dressed person was labeled as an informant of the “army remnants,” and even a beautiful girl who didn’t greet them was accused of being a spy. This terror persisted, exhausting people with fear, sickness, and hunger due to a lack of work. No jobs were available unless you worked with them—and even then, safety was never guaranteed. Their paranoia knew no bounds. They especially distrusted those who worked closely with them. Once, they executed seven collaborators in broad daylight on a busy street after a failed attack on the army. Their cruelty didn’t stop there—they even targeted the mentally ill, killing them in public under the pretext that they were spies. Soon, all the mentally ill disappeared from the neighborhood, and no one knew where they went.

One incident remains deeply etched in my memory—a heartbreaking and strange event. There was a woman who worked as a tea vendor and had a beautiful, young daughter. The girl’s father had passed away, leaving her mother to protect her fiercely from Dagalo’s militia. The mother hid her daughter at home, forbidding her from stepping outside. However, one of the local youth collaborators informed a militia leader about her. These collaborators, being locals, knew everything about the neighborhood and were the source of much of its suffering.

That night, the militia leader came to the woman’s house with a group of armed men. They banged on the door violently. When the mother asked who it was, they claimed to be the authorities. One of them climbed the wall and unlocked the door, allowing them to enter. The girl was hidden in the kitchen, but they searched the house until they found her. They dragged her to the leader, who ordered them to take her to their vehicle. The mother, armed with a stick, struck the leader and screamed at them to leave her daughter alone. One of the men shot her dead on the spot, right before her daughter’s eyes. They dragged the girl to their combat vehicle while her mother’s lifeless body lay there.