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Shop owners in Somalia’s capital, Mogadishu, are caught between a rock and a hard place over a government directive that they install CCTV cameras outside their businesses to intensify surveillance of Islamist insurgents who have a strong presence in the city.<\/p>\n
The businessmen say if they put up the cameras they risk being gunned down by the al-Shabab insurgents, and if they do not, they could be arrested by the police.<\/p>\n
The BBC has changed the names of the businessmen and homeowners for their own safety.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n “The CCTV cameras are why you now see me at home,” says former shop-owner Hamza Nuur, 48, as he sits on a sofa holding one of his children.<\/p>\n He tells the BBC that he took the painful decision to sell his business to avoid incurring the wrath of either side.<\/p>\n “You’re told not to remove the cameras by one side and then you’re told to remove the cameras by the other side. Depending on the choice you make, you’ll either have a bullet or prison cell waiting for you,” Mr Nuur adds.<\/p>\n The government issued a directive last year to shop-owners to install CCTV cameras – at their own cost – to deter attacks by al-Shabab.<\/p>\n Mogadishu’s Deputy Mayor Mohamed Ahmed Diriye tells the BBC Africa Daily podcast<\/a> that the decision has paid off.<\/p>\n “There used to be four or five bombings per month in Mogadishu but that’s no longer the case,” he says.<\/p>\n The government has now ordered residents to install the cameras outside homes and apartment blocks, raising fears among many people that al-Shabab could bring its war into their homes.<\/p>\n Since October, al-Shabab has killed four businessmen in 10 attacks related to the installation of CCTV cameras, according to a leading violence monitoring group, Armed Conflict Location & Event Data (Acled).<\/p>\n The government’s directive was aimed at ultimately disrupting al-Shabab’s sources of funding as it extorts money out of shop-owners, but the retaliatory attacks by the insurgents “have forced many businesses in Mogadishu’s main markets to close their doors for days”, Acled adds in a report published on its website<\/a>.<\/p>\n