I'm travelling around the most exciting continent on the planet,
Africa!
With more than 50 countries, and hundreds of cultures...
Look at you guys! Ja!
Don't switch over, you are watching the right channel.
..it's the fastest-growing, most dynamic...
Everybody here is crazy.
Come on!
..and most epic place on Earth.
Oh, man! I'm going to have to pinch myself in a minute!
On this leg of my trip around Sub-Saharan Africa...
..I'm in the east of the continent in Tanzania, Ethiopia and Somalia.
I'll meet the people making a living in the hottest place on Earth.
Wow! Looks like the camel train has arrived.
And visit one of the fastest-growing cities in Africa.
This is completely different from all the images of Ethiopia
that I grew up with.
And in a country torn apart by war...
This place just looks utterly devastated.
..I'll see how people are building a better future.
I'm prepared to die for that.
I'm starting this part of my journey in Tanzania, in one of
Africa's great wildernesses, and this place looks and sounds
absolutely amazing.
Twende!
Selous Game Reserve is one of the biggest wildlife sanctuaries
in the world.
It's a whopping 20,000 square miles.
That's more than twice the size of Wales.
It's, like, everywhere you look,
you just see wildlife, impala on one side, baboons the other side.
And now we've got warthog over there.
Africa is home to some of the world's most breathtaking wildlife.
And I'd come here in search of the continent's most iconic animal,
For such a massive animal, they're not as easy to find as you'd think.
But I had the help of an expert.
Dr Edward Kohi works for a team that's monitoring elephants,
with tracking collars.
The bush is so thick here, that even huge African elephants
can be impossible to spot unless they're right in front of you.
What are we seeing?
The problem is, the elephants of Selous are in trouble.
There used to be over 100,000 of them here.
But more than 90% have disappeared, most of them killed by poachers.
We'd spent the whole day looking, and not seen a single elephant.
Well, we got up early this morning to look for elephants, and I think
it's been worth it, because look at that over there.
There's a baby!
This is such a beautiful moment.
A mother and her calf. We've just seen them feeding.
I was literally five, six feet away from them.
It's just... My heart's pounding.
It is. It really is.
ELEPHANT ROARS
That was so loud.
One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten. Wow.
Look at them! There's so many elephants.
In elephant families, like this one, the females help look after each
other's calves.
This is one of the coolest things I've ever seen.
That's Alicia? Alicia.
So that big thing on the top of his head,
that's the transmitter base, and it sends out a signal,
which you can trace? Exactly.
And I can see it's affected you.
You seem very emotional, seeing Alicia.
WWF estimate that around 20,000 African elephants are killed
each year for their ivory, that's an average of 55 a day.
It, really, actually gets me here. It frightens me to think
that, you know, the elephant is so under threat
that they could go extinct,
and one day we'll be talking to our kids, and talking about them,
like they're these mythical beasts of the past.
I think that's really sad.
The collars aren't just about collecting data.
They can also help stop poaching.
If Dr Kohi spots a herd moving towards a problem area,
he can send rangers to protect them.
But the sad truth is that it isn't just poachers
who can harm elephants.
I'm guessing the villagers, and the farmers,
are not very happy with this?
Dr Kohi was taking me to a village on the northern edge of the reserve.
This doesn't happen every day.
The path is blocked by bushes and trees.
So we're going to get a machete, and cut our way through.
People here are subsistence farmers. They live off the crops they grow.
It's the same for most of Africa's rural poor.
And these farmers are not big elephant fans.
So are these our guys?
Can you tell me about the problems that you have here?
HE SPEAKS OWN LANGUAGE
So, all these big prints?
Look at that! Look at the size of that print!
When you say one elephant can eat up to two acres' worth of crops,
I mean, how much is that in rice?
How many days' worth of food is that, for you?
One year?! One elephant can eat one year's worth of crops?
The trouble is, trying to scare off a six-tonne elephant isn't easy.
Can you show me?
HE BANGS THE TUB
I can't imagine 20 or 30 elephants just marauding through your fields
and all he's got is this.
DRUMMING AND CLAPPING
Tanzania's population is set to almost double by 2040,
to more than 100 million.
All those people will need to eat, threatening the habitat
of the country's incredible wildlife.
Across Africa, feeding a growing population will be a huge challenge.
This feels like Africa. Huge, vast, exciting.
My eyes are popping out of my head looking at it.
Can we open the window? Let's have a look. Brace yourself. Yes!
I'm holding on to it...
WIND GUSTS
ADE WHOOPS WITH EXCITEMENT
Guys, that was actually, literally breathtaking.
Nature reserves like this are crucial to saving Africa's wildlife.
But even here, the needs of people can end up coming first.
The Tanzanian government has plans to build a giant hydroelectric dam
that could supply enough power for the whole country.
We're just banking left because we're coming up to Stiegler's Gorge.
Now this is the area where the government are planning
on building the dam.
To build the dam, over two and a half million trees
would be cut down.
Massive areas would be flooded.
The International Union for Conservation of Nature
has said that the dam would cause serious and irreversible damage
to the area.
I could sit here and look at that forever, to see all of this,
it's unbelievable.
I'm not sure what to think about it,
because I love how it looks, but the people need power.
More than half of Tanzanians don't have reliable electricity.
It's so important to get power to people here,
and across the continent.
This is, without doubt, one of the most beautiful parts of the world
that I've ever been to. I mean, look at it!
And just like so much of Africa, it's got so much going for it.
But my worry is, at what cost does it make this progress?
You know, will they be able to do it without losing
all of this stunning beauty?
It's a question facing the whole of Africa.
How to get people out of extreme poverty, without destroying
the environment?
The next stop on my East African journey was Ethiopia,
a country many people think of as the poorest of the poor.
I was heading to the far north.
This place is called Dallol.
It has the hottest average temperatures in the world.
The remains of some of our earliest ancestors were found near this area.
We've just pulled over to get some shots, and try and take
in this massive expanse. It's just so surreal here.
And this heat is utterly relentless.
Can you imagine?
It's like being in a huge hairdryer that's turned on to maximum?
It's about 46, 47 degrees.
It's just so overpowering.
Even my wheels...
HE EXCLAIMS ..are really, really hot.
Orangey-yellow.
You can smell the sulphur.
This area is 48 metres below sea level.
The ground is made of salt and minerals.
I've spent so much time looking at the ground,
so I don't fall over one of these big pieces of rock.
Ahead, what have we got?
I can see some steam coming.
That is immense.
Look at the colours.
It's just so mad, and weird, and colourful.
You can hear it bubbling, like some sort of prehistoric cauldron.
I love stuff like this, just natural.
It's this really incredible landscape,
like we're on another planet.
Funny thing is, this is not far from where it all began
for the human race.
Imagine if this was the first thing you saw.
In this kind of heat, and this barren landscape,
it's hard to imagine anything surviving.
And yet, some people live here.
So this is a village that I'm heading to, it's called Assal Bolo.
And the Afar people live in this village.
And the Afar people have got a reputation for being
some of the toughest people on the planet.
And you can understand why.
It's hard to believe anyone can survive here.
This guy, here, he's the chief of this whole area,
and he's kindly building a path for me.
This is Assal Bolo bridge.
It's...
Woo! I'm here!
Out here, in the middle of nowhere, there aren't many ways
to earn a living.
All of this, below me, is salt.
Salt, I'm rolling over it.
This whole area is a giant dried-up salt lake.
Salaam! How are you?
Every day, villagers like Ahmed hack blocks of salt from the ground.
Look at the size of this!
Like this?
HE SPEAKS OWN LANGUAGE
Wow. It looks like the camel train has arrived.
Look at that, an endless line of camels.
From here, the camels travel for days across the desert,
carrying the salt to market towns.
The trade hasn't changed for centuries.
This lifestyle is about as tough as you can imagine.
But out here, opportunities for a different way of life
are almost non-existent.
Just surviving is a miracle.
Back in the village, I met up with Ahmed's wife, Fatima.
Salaam.
How many children do you have, Fatima?
Shocking, listening to Fatima.
I've only met her for a few minutes, and to hear that she's lost
six children in her lifetime. Must have been so hard.
Part of the reason for Fatima's tragedy is that, this far
from civilisation, health care is hours and hours away.
That wasn't exactly the best night's sleep I've ever had.
This place is beautiful.
BIRDS CALLING
Listen to that natural alarm.
It was just so hot, it's just unrelenting heat.
I don't know how the Afar do it.
I think I've lost 2lb or 3lb just in sweat.
The Afar here have lived like this for generations,
but development might finally be coming their way.
Ethiopia is currently working to double its road network.
Roads may not sound like a big deal, but they're one of the best ways
of getting people out of extreme poverty.
They can turn subsistence farmers into traders,
and bring people closer to education and health care.
And this new road is having an even bigger impact.
See that limestone there?
I'm not a fan of helmets because I have to...
Because of my hair...
Torge Kweider works for a Norwegian fertilizer company
that has come here to mine potassium sulphate, also known as potash.
This mine aims to produce 600,000 tonnes of potash a year,
and most of it will be sold abroad.
What is going to stop this from being another story
of Africa being exploited?
You know, because similar things happen with oil, with diamonds.
How would that not happen here?
Since the famine of the '80s, Ethiopia's population has doubled.
And by 2050, there will be a billion more people in Africa
than there are now.
The continent needs to switch from subsistence farming
to large-scale production.
Fertilizer is key.
But I wanted to find out what the locals thought
about a massive European company coming in and mining their land.
I joined some of them on a break.
Go on, son! Go on!
Are you worried about possibly losing your traditional way of life,
now that with all the money, and the stuff that's coming
in from the mining company?
What is potash to Ethiopia?
For centuries, foreign powers have exploited this continent's
resources, leaving local populations in poverty.
The hope is, things will be different for this new generation.
Look at that, a camel salt train on a brand-new Ethiopian road.
For me, this encapsulates where this region is right now,
on whether they can learn from the mistakes that other African
nations have made in the past, when it comes to their natural resources.
If you really want to see how Africa is changing, there's nowhere better
than Ethiopia's capital.
I'd come to Addis Ababa.
Everywhere I look in this city,
there seems to be construction work going on.
Look, there's a building site over there.
There's another one over there.
And Addis Ababa has even built East Africa's first light railway system.
Just over there.
This is completely different from all the images of Ethiopia
that I grew up with.
Back then, Ethiopia used to be one of the poorest countries
in the world.
It still receives aid, but life has improved for many people here.
Today, it's got one of the fastest-growing economies on the planet.
I was about to be shown around the city by someone
a bit special.
I'm about to meet one of Ethiopia's living legends,
Haile Gebrselassie, double Olympic champion, world champion,
and a lot people see him as the greatest long distance runner
of all time. I'm very, very excited about this, actually.
It's not every day that you get to meet an Olympic gold medallist.
Hey, hello, Haile!
It's such a pleasure to meet you.
How are you? I'm good, yourself? Very, very good.
This is amazing. Today, I'm your guide, your tour guide.
Yes, you're my tour guide!
Haile is just getting surrounded by fans.
He said it would be a little bit difficult for him to get out
in the public, and you can see how proud everyone is of him.
Haile began his career early.
He had to run 10km to school and back, every day.
He won his first prize when he was a teenager.
When I was in ninth grade, there was a competition.
There was a 1,500 metres. I didn't know how far is that - 1,500 metres.
I didn't know how many laps.
And the only thing what I knew, was just to leave, you know,
quickly from the group.
You didn't even know how many laps you had to run?
You just ran as fast as you could? Yeah, exactly. I love that.
And we're doing this at altitude.
Haile's building a museum, to house his collection of trophies.
Oh, my days! These are your trophies?
Don't worry, we have enough!
Wow! Look at that.
The story starts from there.
Your pride and joy? Yes. This is my first prize.
When all of these trophies, and the medals, are displayed
in these cabinets, are you hoping they will inspire the next
generation of Ethiopians?
The next Haile Gebrselassie?
I wish, not only in athletics, but other sectors.
When I bring the kids here to see this, I hope, you know,
they enjoy, at the same time, they learn something
out of this achievement. They put in their mind, you know, oh,
I wish, you know, to be like Haile Gebrselassie,
not only in running. There are other things.
So, you competed in Sydney 2000? Oh, yeah, 2000. So did I.
I competed in Sydney 2000 in the Paralympics. Did you?
OK, how was it? Was good? It was amazing. You won?
We lost to the USA, in the last seconds.
I don't need to ask you - you won, of course. I did, I did.
The 10,000.
Why did you decide to come back and live in Addis?
Because a lot of stars, they move and they live in America,
or they live in Europe. Because this is my country.
Can you change your mother?
That's your mother, it doesn't matter how poor she is.
I'm happy, you know, I'm a part of, you know, the change.
With others, we can do a lot of things.
Haile has put the money he earned in athletics to work.
Today, he's one of Ethiopia's most successful entrepreneurs,
with over 2,300 employees.
He's got investments in some of the country's biggest industries,
like coffee, construction, and property.
All of this area is your area? Yes.
Haile's building this block of apartments for Ethiopia's
growing middle classes.
In terms of Africa, where do you see Addis Ababa as a capital city,
amongst all the other capital cities?
This is the Haile Gebrselassie pace, man!
The next morning, I headed to the outskirts of Addis.
I was here to find out more about what's fuelling
Ethiopia's booming economy.
It's factories like this, making goods for Western consumers.
How are you? I'm fine. Lovely to meet you.
Esther Maguse runs the cutting department.
Let's have a look.
Made in Ethiopia. Normally, when we look at clothes in the UK,
it usually says, "Made in China" or, "Made in India."
So, for me, this is a surprise.
There are 1,500 workers here, and most of them are women.
They work long hours to earn just £45 a week.
Just one pair of the shoes they make can sell for more than that.
This is the...? Hand stitching department. Hand stitching? Yeah.
And how does this work compare to the work you did with your family?
This might look like a low-paid sweatshop
but, compared to subsistence farming, this is a pretty good job.
It was factories like this that powered the boom
in Asian economies like China's.
Countries like China and India used manufacturing
to become super economies.
Maybe this is Ethiopia's first step in that direction.
Chinese companies are starting to take advantage
of the cheap labour here, and are actually setting up factories
across Africa, and Chinese investment has brought other things
to the country too.
So, this is, like, the equivalent of the Eurostar.
Except we're going from Ethiopia to Djibouti.
Thank you. Ameseginalehu.
Look at this brand-new station.
Floors nice and new. Chinese-built train as well.
This train is vital for Ethiopia's industrial dream.
To be a real global player, Ethiopia needs to be able to ship
its goods abroad, but it's landlocked so it relies
on the port of neighbouring Djibouti for its exports and imports.
Sorry, I'm in your way again. Are you going to Djibouti?
What's your name?
If you want to chat with 12 hours to go, come over. OK!
Very punctual, eight o'clock on the dot.
We're just moving off. I'd better settle in,
because this is a 12 hour journey, almost 500 miles along.
The line is fully electrified.
It travels northeast from Addis, all the way across the border
to neighbouring Djibouti.
Wow.
EXCITED CHATTER
We've stopped at the stop just before the border,
before we get into Djibouti, and the train sprung into life.
We've got people screaming and shouting, left, right, and centre,
people bringing on food, people bringing on grass.
Pushing and shoving.
Cargo trains used this line for bulk exports, but it's also used
by ordinary people buying and selling pretty much everything.
This is Chard? Yes.
And what do you do with this?
How does this train compare to the old train?
I wanted to talk to Medina, the lady I'd met when I first
boarded the train.
How are you? Good. How are you? Yeah, good.
We spoke earlier.
Medina was born in Djibouti, but she now lives in the United States.
I came there as a refugee.
As a young girl, you know, but that was over 20 years ago.
We had a civil war in Djibouti, so it wasn't safe for us to live there.
And I was about, maybe, 12, 13 at the time.
And we stay here for four years in the camp.
Do you think people really know what it's like to be a refugee?
You're not going to know until you live in the camp, and see
that you have to go get water. Dig water from the ground,
or ask for a kilo of rice.
You have to live there in order for you to understand,
to feel that.
I get emotional because I've been there, as a little girl.
So I remember those days.
Why did you decide to come back, and bring the kids over as well?
I want them to know exactly where they come from.
Teach them that there is more to learn from the people,
their grandparents and, you know, the tribes.
I think Medina's got a classic immigrant story.
Actually, it's more than that because she was a refugee as well.
And it's funny, it makes me think about my childhood,
because I've never seen myself as an immigrant.
But, maybe, it's that background.
It's my parents' sense of being African,
and wanting to instil that African culture into me,
that's made me who I am today.
And, you know, it makes you a survivor, it makes you strong,
it makes you, you know, makes you feel like you have to compete
against all odds.
And, I think, that's what Medina wants her kids to get from here.
She wants to get that.
She wants them to have that, that fighting spirit,
and never forget who they are.
The war that drove Medina out of Djibouti ended in 1994.
Ethiopia also had its own long and brutal conflict.
Colonial powers left Africa wrecked with civil wars.
Nearly all of them are over now.
But there's one notorious war that never seems to end.
I was heading to neighbouring Somalia.
Just about to touch down in Mogadishu.
I'll be honest with you, I'm feeling a little bit nervous
because all you ever hear about Mogadishu in the news
is just about how dangerous it is.
That was an interesting landing.
Here we go.
Well, we've touched down safely enough.
Mogadishu is one of the most dangerous cities in the world.
Just coming out the airport now, our vehicle's over this way.
Assassinations, terrorist attacks, and kidnappings are common.
And this isn't an ordinary car. This has got... It's armour plated.
You can see it's got bullet-proof glass. This door weighs a tonne.
I was checking into my hotel, called Chelsea Village.
This is where I'm staying. From outside it doesn't look like much,
but when you get inside you can see how they've styled it up.
These are the rooms, basically, they are containers, which,
if you've been to East London, you'll see they're all the rage.
They've even named the streets that the containers and rooms are on
famous London streets.
It just gives you something familiar to log on to,
when you're staying somewhere that's so hostile.
And look at this, blast walls.
You don't see that in hotels in capital cities.
Until recently, Somalia was ruled by an Islamic terror group
called al-Shabaab.
But since 2007, an African military force called AMISOM
has been fighting to get the country back under control.
Look at all these vehicles, all fully armoured.
Machine guns everywhere.
I knew I was going to be going out on patrol today,
and I just had this, like, nervous feeling bubbling about
in my stomach all night.
AMISOM soldiers come from five different African countries.
In 2011, they managed to force al-Shabaab out of Mogadishu.
But most of the rest of the country is still lawless, and AMISOM
are fighting to win it back inch by inch.
This place just looks utterly devastated, utterly.
I mean, we're going through a main town
and there is not a single building
that is standing, or that hasn't been...
..seen some sort of destruction.
We were heading towards the front line of the war.
So before you came, was all of this area under control of al-Shabaab?
If you've removed al-Shabaab from this area, where are they now?
Where is their stronghold?
Is this not even more dangerous
than a conventional challenge of war,
because you don't know where they're going to come from?
War and famine have displaced more than two million people.
Hundreds of thousands have died.
We'd reached our destination, a town called Afgooye,
18 miles from Mogadishu.
This used to be one of al-Shabaab's most important strongholds.
These sort of areas, which are unknown,
you just start feeling worried. You can see our guys, the AMISOM guys,
have created a perimeter.
They've put two armoured vehicles blocking that entrance,
so no-one can take us by surprise.
Plan is to go and speak to some of the local population,
to find out what life is like here.
But before we could do that,
we had to speak to the local leader, to get the OK.
I think everything's all right. This way, yeah?
Been told we've only got five minutes here,
and this place has been hit by an al-Shabaab plenty of times.
They've had IEDs and bombs all the time, so, yeah.
They've apparently found someone for us to talk to.
I'm not sure of what it's going to be like, because suddenly we turn up
with 20 soldiers and want to speak to them.
See, big problem here, we've not got much time.
And, even though the area is supposed to be relatively safe,
people here still don't feel comfortable to talk
in front of camera.
I think we might have to go. What's happening, Captain?
Yeah, yeah, of course.
Why would they not talk to us, the people,
why didn't they want to talk?
That's something that I'm starting to learn,
that the nature of warfare here is completely different
to what you'd imagine.
It's not the AMISOM forces vs Al-Shabaab,
and al-Shabaab on that line.
Al-Shabaab could be anywhere.
And that's what these people are worried about.
As we headed back to Mogadishu, we got some news showing
just how active al-Shabaab were in this area.
We've been told that al-Shabaab has known that we've been
in the country, and they've told the people in this area, Afgooye,
that if any of them speaks to us, that they will kill them.
They basically threatened them,
which explains why they were really afraid to talk to us.
It's worrying on so many levels.
Worrying for those people, but also worrying for us,
in terms of how do they know we're here?
It costs billions of pounds to keep the 20,000 AMISOM soldiers fighting
in Somalia, but there are plans to start withdrawing the troops.
At some point, Somalis themselves are going to have to
take over this struggle.
Since al-Shabaab was driven out of Mogadishu,
the city has been controlled
by an internationally backed government.
But, on average, 40 people are killed
in terror attacks every month in the capital, and more are injured.
Everyone is just...on high alert,
just stressed, because you just don't know what's going to happen.
The threat here is very real, especially for women.
When al-Shabaab ruled the city, women were treated like slaves.
They were banned from driving, talking to men who weren't family,
and even leaving home without a male relative.
Punishments for breaking al-Shabaab's rules
included public stoning to death.
But since al-Shabaab were forced out, things are looking up.
I'm just on my way to meet a female basketball team,
based here in Mogadishu.
I don't really know that much about women's sport in this country,
but what I have been told is that al-Shabaab has put a ban
on all women playing sport, and these women are defying the odds.
I'm really interested in meeting them.
And they play my sport,
so I think this is going to be a special moment,
to play basketball in Mogadishu.
Everything about this place is so surreal.
I mean, first of all, I'm in an armoured vehicle, on a basketball court.
The great thing is I've been told that, for the first time,
it's safe enough to take off my PPE.
That's so much easier.
I've haven't been in this chair for a while.
How are you guys doing?
This is really cool.
Oh, yeah.
Yeah.
Shall we play a game?
These girls are one of eight teams that play in a regional league.
Shot!
They've got some skills.
They're good. They're good.
They've got good basic shooting technique.
I think they're just enjoying themselves, which is great.
Although al-Shabaab aren't in charge here any more,
it's still a very conservative society.
Ayesha, tell me what was it like for you when you first decided,
"I want to play basketball."
What did your parents and your family say?
Why is it so difficult for women to play sport, here in Somalia?
For me, to hear that, is just... It's mind boggling.
You know, I thought I had to struggle to play sport.
But for you to say that, you know, at any moment because you play sport
you could be killed, and you're still prepared to carry on,
I think you're both extremely brave people.
It just makes me think, you know, what those girls are going through
because they have to deal with all of this insecurity
every day of their lives.
And the fact that they're willing to give up everything,
potentially lose their lives, just to play sport
and they know the significance of what they're doing,
they know how much it could change things here, for women
in Somalia, and probably women all over Africa.
During Somalia's civil war, hundreds of thousands of people
have fled abroad.
A lot of professionals have gone to live in the West.
If this country is going to have a chance of rebuilding,
it needs some of them to return.
My name's Ade. I know you very well.
I've heard about the great things you're doing here.
I'm really interested to talk to you.
Thank you very much, thank you for coming.
Do you want to show me around?
This is our reception.
Hi, hello, hello.
Shamsa Abdullahi Bybook is a doctor and midwife
who lived in the UK for nearly 30 years.
We have here our operating room.
In 2016, she gave up working for the NHS, to set up one
of Mogadishu's only specialist maternity hospitals.
Here, we have got the water bath room.
It's not as sophisticated as the UK, but it's initial step.
Is this your office, here? This is my office, yes.
How difficult was the decision to come back to Somalia?
Because it's not an easy country to live in.
No, it's not easy.
But, me and my husband, we used to come for...
..vacations, so when we come here and we see so much difficulty,
we thought that it's about time to move back,
and help the people who need our services.
In Somalia, one in seven children dies before the age of five.
That's thousands of little kids, dying
before they've even started school.
And one in 12 women dies due to pregnancy-related causes.
This is called Resuscitare.
Who is this here? Is this a boy or a girl? This is a boy.
The boy was born four hours ago.
Four hours ago? He was floppy when he was born.
And he was blue like this cloth.
So we had to bring him in and resuscitate him.
What would have happened to this baby?
You know, if they hadn't had this treatment, or been able
to come to this hospital?
Most of women having babies, they go to a midwife, home,
if the baby comes out floppy and not breathing, she will say,
"Well, this baby's not alive,"
put them there, and cover from head to toe.
This baby's dead, that's what they do.
And this baby would need only resuscitation and oxygen.
That baby would survive.
So there are so many babies who could have survived? Exactly.
But, literally, they've been written off just because the midwife
doesn't have the knowledge or the experience?
Doesn't have the knowledge,
and doesn't have the instruments, and doesn't have the experience.
Dr Shamsa is not alone.
Many Somalis who fled the war are returning.
Even the Mayor of Mogadishu is a former council worker from London.
What is it like to work in a place like this where, potentially,
your life could be in danger,
the life of the kids you're trying to save could be in danger as well?
It is very risky.
However, I believe if I die today, it's worth it,
because I have saved a few babies.
And I'm intending to do so, for the rest of my life.
In that course, if I get injured, or shot, or get killed,
I'm prepared for that.
I'm prepared to die for that.
I'm just... I'm blown away.
The message I'm sending is,
to particularly the Somali people who fled from their country,
they have to think to come back to their country,
and build their country.
We are moving forward, starting from the government,
from the people, from the mother who is delivering the baby.
We are alive, and thriving, and ready to move forward.
That's beautiful. I mean, it's making me emotional.
I'm African as well, so to hear this...
Yeah... I know...
Shall we meet the mother? Yeah.
This is Ikram. Hello, Ikram.
Congratulations.
How does it feel, to have your baby in your arms now?
What are your hopes for your baby's future?
Maybe he'll become a doctor like Dr Shamsa?
The war against al-Shabaab is far from won.
But what strikes me about it, is that it's being fought by Africans,
from the AMISOM troops I met, to people like Dr Shamsa
who are risking everything to come home.
It's made me feel really emotional.
Meeting some of these people who've shown incredible resilience
under some really challenging situations, and, you know,
these people have been prepared to give up absolutely everything
in order to try and rebuild their countries.
And for me that is truly humbling.
But you know what? It's not over yet.
I've still got a lot more of this great continent to see.
Next time, I'm in Southern Africa.
And I'll see the natural world under attack.
Oh, man!