MOGADISHU — 10-year-old Abdi Adan Nur can't remember a happy moment in his life.
"I have never done anything nice in my life, let alone go to school," he told Agence France-Presse (AFP) on Monday, March 16.
"I can only read a few lines of the Qur'an," added the young child, wearing a torn red T-shirt dangling from his bony shoulders with no shoes.
Every morning, Nur leaves home without breakfast to polish shoes in central Mogadishu.
"On a good day, I get about 40,000 shillings (1.5 dollars) and I give it to my mother so that she can prepare a decent meal," he said, fumbling a wad of grimy notes in his trouser pocket.
Somali boys become bread-winners at a very early age and many of them begin their lonely struggle for survival as shoe-shiners.
In a country where the alternative would often be to join an armed militia, all they dream of is a chance to a normal life and go to school.
"I believe I have the right to a better life and education, just like the children in the West," said Hassan Qasim, a 12-year-old orphan.
According to UN estimates, only 22 percent of Somali children attended primary school between 2000 and 2006. Only six percent were enrolled in secondary schools.
"The war took everything, leaving children from poor families like me in misery," said Qasim.
Somalia has been without effective government since the ouster of former president Mohamed Siad Barre in 1991.
More than 14 attempts to restore a functional government have since failed.
Worst-ever
As the country is still wracked by daily violence, many Somali children fell prey to militias and armed gangs.
"The children in this country are facing their worst time ever," said Abdullahi Mohamed Yasin, a human rights activist in Mogadishu.
"Nobody is caring for them. Some of them have joined armed groups and are dying in the war."
Abdirasak Ali lost three of his friends after joining an armed group.
"Some of my friends went with the armed groups and three of them died already," he told AFP.
"I don't want to join them."
The small boy hopes the election of Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed as Somalia's president will augur well for the future of his war-torn homeland.
"I believe that with the election of the new president our hopes are higher than before," Ali said.
"We need an education, we don't want to spend all day running after people's shoes in the streets."
Before the Ethiopian invasion in 2006, Sharif and his Islamic Courts Union managed to restore a rare security to the Horn of African nation.
"I hope the new president will set up programs to improve our lives, if he manages to ensure security that is," said Qasim, the 12-year-old orphan.
But many Somali children are still pessimistic about any change in their life.
"I think there is more suffering ahead," said Abdulkadir Kusow.
"I have been a shoe-shiner for nearly two years and see no hope for peace yet. Everybody is armed in this country and everybody wants to be president."
Picking from a pile of gravel and tossing the stones one by one on the street, the young child shakes his head with the dejected smirk of a wizened adult.
"So I just need to work hard and forget about all this stupid politics."
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