Mogadishu, (insidesomalia.org) - Al-Nur primary school, one of the best in Mogadishu that used to host 2,400 students, has been transformed into an Ethiopian military base after most of its students were either killed, disabled, or displaced.

A year ago, 53 000 Somali children attended school in Mogadishu. Today, that number is plummeting as education's priority rank is taken over by survival.

In April 2007, local NGOs and Hawiye clan leaders collected more than 70 dead bodies of mostly children inside and around the school. When I and other journalists arrived to the scene, the Ethiopian forces confiscated our cameras and ordered not to take photographs.

In a cold Monday morning of Nov. 13, 2006, upon visiting to the school, I had seen more than 2,000 students chanting the national anthem with smiley faces and colorful uniforms that obscure the widespread tragedy sweeping the whole nation.

More than 6,500 people were killed in Mogadishu's atrocity and more than 1,000 were children, according to Elmann Peace and Human Rights Organization. Some of them were killed with their family members in Ethiopian missile strikes targeting civilian areas. Others were killed as members of insurgency groups.

A large number of those who survived death found themselves homeless in the streets of Mogadishu. Abdi Abdulahi Mohamed, 14, a former school boy who is now a drug addict, was in the eighth grade when Mogadishu fell in the hands of the Ethiopian forces in December 2006. Mohamed said he had the ambition to be a civil engineer and contribute to the rebuilding of Somalia.

"Ethiopian missiles wiped out most of my family members," Mohamed said. "I lost my family when we fled, I don't know where they are."

"As a street child, I endured more than I could bear of abuses; when I beg people for food, they call me a street gangster; they don't help me. That's why I want to use the drug to avoid thinking, because if I recall when my family and I were swept out, I will either be mad or commit suicide."

Mohamed today lives in the destroyed premises of Al-Aruba hotel, a former luxurious hotel during the Siad Bare's regime, which ended in 1991. He removes trash from the teashops and residents for survival subsistence.

After Mohamed's ambition to be an engineer faded, he now believes "revenge" is the "only solution" that can heal his pain he believed the Ethiopian forces inflicted on him.

Mohamed's case is but one of many who live in similar or worse conditions after having lost their families since the Ethiopian forces invaded Somalia. However, not all children without families were the product of war.

Abdi Salad Hassan, 13, lost his parents in 1997 when their village was flooded in heavy rainfalls that claimed 300 lives.

Both Hassan and Mohamed are clearly aware of the simple politics of the war that have changed their lives. As children, they don't grab the idea of them being caught in the middle of the international supra-politics of countering the so-called terrorism.

As if the suffering of Hassan has not been enough, the US government has shut down his only shelter, the center of Al-Haramain Islamic foundation.

In 2003, the US government suspended all activities of Al-Haramain Islamic foundation, which is a Saudi-based charity organization that was running orphanage centers in Somalia. The result was that children remained without shelter, food, or an alternative of Al-Haramain.

Hassan used to live in an Al-Haramain orphanage center where he learned Qur'an and other subjects. But since the US government suspended the foundation, Hassan lost the only caregiver he had.

Sahra Ali, 6, and Hamdi Ali, 5, are two sisters who live in an Internally Displaced People's (IDP) camp in the outskirts of Mogadishu. Their mother, dressed in shabby clothing, lives in a makeshift house without mattress or bed linens. In the kitchen, she has only two plastic mats and few old cooking elements.

Sahra said, "At a nighttime, one missile slammed our house, then it killed my father and my elder brother, we fled and we live here. My mother goes to wash cloths for the neighbors and if she gets some money she cooks food, then we eat; if not, we drink only normal water and stay all the day," she added.

She said she is optimistic that one time Ethiopians will withdraw and they will go back to their house in Mogadishu and will start a better life.

However, despite pileups of problems surrounding them, these Somali children exhibit an usual, resilient smile. Sahra explained this smile saying, "We are Muslims, our mother told us to say Al-hamdu lillah [Arabic for: praise be to Allah] and smile every time."

"In Somalia, only one girl in four gets a primary education, and this is a situation that must change rapidly," Christian Balslev-Olesen, UNICEF representative in Somalia, said, according to Unicef.org.uk. Olesen said that girls' education will "shape the progress we want to see for Somalia in terms of peace and development."

"In Somalia today, only about 11 percent of primary school-aged children have access to formal education, one of the lowest gross enrolment ratios in the world," according to uncef.org.uk

But as the world hitherto failed to protect children of Somalia, they themselves have decided to take the guns and fight invaders.

Ja'afer Osman, 16, vowed that he would never go back to school unless Ethiopian forces withdraw from Somalia. "If I take a book, they will kill me; that's why I must keep fighting them. Education is not a matter now, jihad is my first priority," he said.

On Thursday, March 7, 2008, the Buroa district court ruled on the case of Abdulkader Jama Yusuf, a 22-year-year-old father of three who lost his family since he was 4 years old and whom two families have disputed as their own son for years.

The chief judge of Buroa district court, Mohamed Jama Anshur, declared Yusuf as the son of Jama Yusuf and his wife Hiis Noor based on "reasoning," not on DNA tests. The judge found that Yusuf shared some natural body signs with members of one family.

Yusuf was stolen by an unknown woman when his family fled the war and a well-known businessman from Yusuf’s clan in Buroa "bought" him from her.

Eighteen years later when the businessman died, he left a letter for his family stating that Yusuf was not his son and he only bought him from a woman.

Yusuf explained his feeling as he was being assigned a new family, "I was very shocked and close to committing suicide; the businessman was my father for 18 years, and I was depressed when he stated me as a person he had bought, not as a son."

But the court's ruling has given Yusuf a sense of happiness and contentment. He said, "Now, me and my children have ancestors, otherwise we would have been downcast."

Currently, more than 12 children under the age of 10 are awaiting similar court ruling in the Buroa Police Department as different families dispute over their parenthood.

Abukar Albadri is a Somali freelance Journalist based in Mogadishu. He has worked previously with LAtimes, DPA, Spanish News Agency (EFE) and Aljazeera English. Currently he is a member of Somali Journalists Society (SJS) and the Federation of Arab Journalists (FAJ).