IRIN Web Special on Separated Somali Children

I am not Safiya from Somalia any more; I am 12-year- old Fatuma flying abroad with her uncle - that is what my mother told me this morning before I was taken to the airport. He is sitting so close to me on the plane now, but never looks at me. When he came to the house last night, my mother told me, go with him and do everything he tells you. If I move my arm I can still feel pain where he held me hard, in the airport, when they were stamping my new document.

When I cried for my mother this morning, he shouted at me. She pushed me out of the house, and my heart and my stomach emptied. Now, I can't stop thinking about how we ran together from the war. It runs through my head like the noise of the plane. When we ran together from the guns, we were screaming and falling and dying. But here, every one stares in front of them as the roar of the plane gets louder, and louder. They make no noise. I have never seen so many people with such beautiful clothes sit so still and so quiet: where are they all going?

"Passport." That word I understand, but I don't have it - Muhammad the agent took it away when he left me at the telephone box outside the airport. Then he told me to wait until my aunt called. Always tell your story and nothing more, Muhammad told me; otherwise you will be in very big trouble.

I stood and watched the telephone for hours, all wet from the icy rain, until someone brought a man in uniform. I don't like the way this loud white man keeps waving his finger at me now. My teeth are making noise and my body is shaking, but it makes the big man talk louder when I pull my shawl around my face. I dare not look at him; I cannot talk to him. I think he has arrested me.

Where are they taking me? I want to go back home immediately. The translator told me the name of this country and said they would look for my aunt. He asked me to stop crying. He said I should talk to them, and then I would not be in trouble. But he didn't believe I was 12 years old. "Fatuma," he said, "they know you are lying."

"You can sleep on the floor."

My uncle seems nervous tonight. I know that woman is his girlfriend and I know she will stay the night. All that talking he does - how happy he is to have someone around in this freezing little - hah…jeel baag ku jiraa [yes…I am in prison]. When I say my name is Safiya, he gets so angry! "Fatuma, make tea; Fatuma, bring the food." Does he think if he keeps on saying that name, I will become someone different?

Anyway, at least he will be happy tonight. Perhaps he will forget to punish me for trying to telephone my mother again.

I hope so.

Another day alone; sitting among all these happy, talking children. Is it worse when they look away, or when they look towards me? When that girl stopped me in the corridor, I thought she was going to be my friend. But then, I could see she was talking to her group, her supporters, and not to me. She plucked my clothes. She stuck her face near mine and made stupid noises. She placed her beautiful black shoe next to my sandals and laughed. When I told her to stop it, she got louder, and closer, and swore at me - so I pushed her back.

Well, if I sit here in the classroom and keep quiet, no one will notice me… I love the pictures in this book and the way the white paper looks so clean and smells so new. I could look forever at this one with the photographs of the sea and the desert and the hot sun. That village, with the goats and the camels...

"Fatuma!"

Now I'm in trouble. I can tell by the way the teacher swings past my chair and sighs when he glances at me. I tried to explain about that girl, but the teacher said he would have to tell my uncle -"We don't behave like that. We don't do things like that in this country".

He stands there; I stand here; and we shout. Since he found out about the disco, I don't know how many times we have been over the same thing - my tight trousers, my short hair, my naked shoulders, my boyfriend, my bad friends. Diigad baai haysa [I can't breath anymore]. Then he found one of those letters from school in my bedroom.

But I know you well now, uncle, and you won't hit me again. That's why I stand here, with my hand near the telephone, just ready to call for help if you take one more step towards me. Believe me, ha moodin sidii hoore [I am not the same person that I used to be].

So, Hoyo [mother], now I have you back - and you have me. That was my dream! - but I call this a nightmare.

"Qaxooti! [refugee]" - he thinks I don't understand that? He carries the knife like it's a new toy, in this wreckage they call a school. When I jump at the sound of shooting, he throws stones at me as if I am a foreigner. I am too scared to go and face these wild, violent children again - they despise me.

If you wanted a good Somali girl, then why did you send me away? You want me to cover my head, and look after the house, and marry that old man? - then you wasted your money. I wake up and want to die: the flies, the heat, the gunfire, the gossip and the laughing at me. Mama, I don't want your stupid rules, and long, endless days at home. There is nothing here for me.

I am no longer in your world and I no longer want it.

[ENDS]

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