We all piled into the Land cruiser and headed for shark's bay, about 15 kilometres outside the city of Mogadishu.Much nearer town my father, with very occasional help from me, had taken time to do up the UN beach club, to smear plaster lovingly over the crumbling pillars and, when all the plaster had dried, to paint the club a beachy beige. The UN club was a simple, small, rectangular, flat roofed Italian house with a veranda that looked out over the sea. (Later it became a nightclub and then the property of a warlord.) While drinking and watching the sun go down UN staff sitting on the veranda had witnessed a shark attack. A young boy in the shallows was grabbed at the calf and bled copiously into the sea. He was rushed away to hospital. I don't know if he survived. So swimming on Mogadisciu's town beaches was off limits. The Soviets, guests of Siad Barre, were to blame. with typically manic disregard for environmental fallout, they had put an abattoir for cattle and camel...
Left wing commentary from the heart and the head