Hussein is a 33 years old man who is expecting a child by the woman of whom he is in love. In many parts of the world, if you start to tell a story like this, everyone expects to hear, at any moment, the classic "and they lived happily ever after." But this is not a fairy tale and for Hussein and his woman there are not happy endings. Because theirs is the ruthless chronicle of another barbarism that was consumed in one of the most harsh place of East Africa.
Because Hussein is Somali and in his damned land young men often end their lives on the street, under a pile of stones. He was executed a November morning, stoned in a square of his town, Merka, southern Somalia. To watch him die, as a beast, three hundred angry people. What was his crime? Adultery. He had a relationship outside of marriage with a woman who in a few months would give him a son.
The sentence was issued without appeal by an Islamic court in Shebab: a group of fundamentalists who literally apply the Sharia, or Islamic law which provides for the death penalty in cases of an unjust murder of a Muslim, adultery, blasphemy against Allah (from persons of any faith), and apostasy (ridda). But this law is regularly invoked to justify cases of death sentence for homosexuals. The Islamic court has decided the same punishment for his woman, a girl who will die for having loved the "wrong" man. She will be stoned in the square just like his Hussein, just after giving birth to their child.
A few months ago the same thing had happened to Aisha, a girl only 13 years old, in Kismayo, southern Somalia. According to what some humanitarian activists said the child had been raped by three older men. And for denouncing the violence she deserved to die. The shock to these dark fables has rekindled for a few days the spotlight on one of the hardest-hit countries in the Horn of Africa, Somalia, a land best known to the many warlords, who, on those streets bloodied by 40 years of conflict, have built their immense fortunes. In the chaos, between the territories in the hands of fundamentalists and cities controlled by the transitional government, backed by Ethiopia, from 2007 to now in Somalia were killed over 12 thousand civilians.
A million and a half refugees, untold violence suffered by the population. In this silent drama there are many deaths like Hussein and Aisha, without guilt, just having loved or having tried to rebel against those who took away their dignity and smile. The child of Hussein and his girlfriend will live. For the baby, the fundamentalists have chosen another destiny, to be adopted by relatives of the mother, who will grow him in Merka. Who knows if one day he will listen to the sad story of Hussein and his woman and how easy it is to die in that land that has buried compassion under a pile of stones.
Valeria Calicchio
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