Unreported World

The Master Chef of Mogadishu (2012x12)

Ausstrahlung: Nov 23, 2012

Mogadishu is one of the most dangerous cities on earth. Unreported World meets the remarkable British Somali man who has mortgaged his life in London and left his family behind to set up a chain of restaurants in the Somali capital. Cooking is his contribution to the peace process in this war-torn country. Ahmed fled Somalia when he was a boy and settled in Britain. He trained as a chef and set up a successful restaurant in West London before returning to Somalia. But Ahmed's success running restaurants has made him a target of jihadi organisation Al Shabaab. One of his restaurants has been hit by a double-suicide attack, leaving 20 dead. Ahmed is determined to carry on. The stakes could not be higher: his business, his marriage, even his survival. After 21 years of civil war a new government in Somalia is hoping for peace, but still battling Al Shabaab, a militant army loyal to Al Qaeda. The new government has no power, depending for its survival on a 17,000-strong African Union army that has pushed back Al Shabaab insurgents since last year. But the militants still stage guerrilla attacks, bombings and assassinations. There's no gunfire in Mogadishu on the day reporter Aidan Hartley and director John Conroy meet Ahmed at his beachfront café - cooking for a clientele that includes other Somalis returning home from exile in the UK. But just a few days beforehand, two suicide bombers had blown themselves up in his city centre restaurant, called the Village. The attackers shot customers and then exploded their bombs, murdering 20 people. Al Shabaab gloated over the deaths and has promised to strike again. Ahmed takes the team to see his bombed cafe. It's a gruesome sight. Where one of the bombers detonated himself, fragments of his body and blood have been blasted all over the walls and ceiling, together with the remains of several other people. But Ahmed tells Hartley that he's staying put: 'I'm not going anywhere. I'm going to rebuild