The Warlords Next Door

He finds a lawless city that’s descended into extreme violence. Vicious fighting between insurgents and government forces has killed thousands and caused hundreds of thousands to flee their homes. The horrors of the fighting are captured on film – at one point a roadside bomb hits a vehicle escorting the Dispatches team.

Filming in the hospitals, on the streets and in the vast makeshift refugee camps on the outskirts of Mogadishu, Hartley builds up an extraordinary account of how indiscriminate artillery shelling, assassinations and street fighting dominate the lives of ordinary Somalis.

Hartley and producer/director Adam Wishart also reveals how key politicians at the heart of the fighting enjoy close links to Britain and the West. They have British or EU passports, and they often commute between Somalia and homes in British cities. British taxpayers help finance financing them in the name of democracy - yet in Somalia Hartley shows they are linked to allegations of mass murder, torture, extortion and corruption.

An international version of this film is available.

TV Pick of the Day in the Observer, Daily Mail, and Independent