As a winter storm approached New York in January, I lost my cousin. I lost a very good friend from high school too. Abdirahman and Omar died in the same place during an attack on a beachside restaurant in the Somali capital, Mogadishu.
When I learned of the attack on Twitter, I posted a note of concern for those who were targeted. Lido beach is a symbol of the city’s comeback. It is a space that captures the rhythmic changes of Mogadishu, and the pulsing beat of a city shedding its war-weary image. “Stay safe everyone,” I wrote, rather naively.
Just over 20 minutes later, I went on Twitter again and posted a prayer for those caught “in this dusk of danger and darkness”. I put my phone aside and continued eating dinner with a friend.
An hour later, I came to know about my loved ones’ deaths through WhatsApp. After the first group of people ran to safety, Abdirahman and Omar couldn’t be found. When the siege ended in the morning, family members went back to the restaurant and identified their bodies. That’s when my sister messaged me from Nairobi to break the news.
At first, the words on my screen seemed to reverberate through my apartment. I felt the heat at the back of my head rising. I remember the stillness of the leafless trees outside. The world, for a moment, seemed to rise in collective upheaval and violent silence. Suddenly, I recalled the last time I saw my cousin Abdirahman.
It was on Lido beach late on 11 January – 11 days before his death. He was sitting in the same cafe where he was killed. I had travelled to Somalia for a reporting project.
That night, a friend had picked me up from my hotel, and we went to have dinner together. When we got to the beach, Abdirahman was sat with friends. His feet were buried in the sand and his sandals lay by his side. When I called his name, he leapt from his chair and hugged me. “I thought you were in New York,” he said, “I can’t believe this.” He was warm and cheery that night.
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