By Abdi Sheikh MOGADISHU, Sept 5 (Reuters) - Sitting cross-legged with her four famished children, 30-year-old Nasteha Hussein says inflation and insecurity in the Somali capital have made the mandatory fast in the Muslim holy month a difficult affair. To escape near-daily fighting in one of the world's most chaotic cities, Hussein now lives in a hut made of branches covered by rugs in a camp with other displaced people. Whereas other Muslims around the world lay on a feast to break their daily fast, residents in predominantly-Muslim Mogadishu say hyperinflation and a sharp devaluation of the Somali shilling mean a meal is not guaranteed. "We used to beg people in all corners of the town, and at least buy some food. But life has worsened due to inflation and insecurity," the widow said in her rain-drenched shelter. "Apart from the grains we receive from aid agencies occasionally, we have nothing. The most merciful person could give a thousand shillings, but it cannot buy even a banana." One U.S. dollar now exchanges for 36,000 shillings, from some 6,000 shillings in 1991 when the country descended into lawlessness after the ouster of dictator Mohamed Siad Barre. Since then, the Horn of Africa country has had no authority and central rule has degenerated into fiefdoms and incessant violence -- especially in Mogadishu. During Ramadan, Muslims are expected to say special Taraweh prayers in mosques, break their fasts and visit each other after sundown. The mosques have not been spared the violence. Sitting on a worn-out mat, Sheikh Hussein Osman recites verses from the Koran and leads his wife and children in the Taraweh prayers at his house. An old red carpet in a mosquito-infested corridor now serves as his mosque. "If their the mortars don't get you, then they will not spare you in the mosques," the 45-year-old Muslim leader says. "Life is useless when sheikhs cannot pray or teach the Koran in mosques." Somalia has been mired in violence since 1991. It had a brief respite when Islamists wrenched power from an interim government in mid-2006. That lasted for only half a year, ending when the government drove the Islamists out of the capital with the aid of Ethiopian allies. But that only resulted in an Iraqi-style insurgency. Their clashes have killed over 8,000 people and left two thirds of the country in desperate need of humanitarian relief. Earlier this week, the Islamists said they would intensify attacks on the government over Ramadan in spite of a U.N.-brokered peace deal signed in Djibouti in June. Children have been worst affected by the violence. Mogadishu's homeless orphans say life in this wet Ramadan is the worst they have ever had. "I have no home or parents. I sleep where I doze off and survive on my own," said 14-year-old Aden Isse who survived by reselling the cast-off twigs of the narcotic khat that is popular in Somalia. Men who chew the leaves and stalks are now too scared to sit out on verandas, and the cafes where they used to chew and discard their khat have closed. "We could have had enough money to buy food. Men now chew khat only at night when no humans are walking," Isse said. "It rains terribly and I am afraid floods will wash me away with the rubbish. I wish Ramadan and these destructive rivals were extinct." (Editing by Helen Nyambura-Mwaura and Dominic Evans)
Local children eat watermelon near a destroyed house in the main South Ossetian city Tskhinvali September 4, 2008. Russia's conflict with Georgia has helped President Dmitry Medvedev emerge from the shadow ...
