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Somalia-South Africa: Mahad Omar Abdi: "I cannot go back to Somalia"
Mahad Omar Abdi, 33, from Somalia, owns a supermarket in the sprawling dormitory township of Khayelitsha, on the outskirts of the Atlantic port city of Cape Town. His shop was looted during xenophobic attacks in South Africa in May 2008.
"I belong to the Hawiye tribe, one of the main tribes in Somalia, and I lived in Mogadishu [the capital] before I left in 1994 because of the fighting. At that time I was only 18 years old and there was no hope or future in my homeland.
"If I stayed there I would have been forced to fight in the civil war by my tribal elders, like many of the other boys in my homeland. I did not want to get involved in the fighting so I decided I must leave my country - and my father, mother, brother and sister - behind.
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