T he water was rising rapidly. It had already reached Cayni Ali’s waist. Her home, five metres from the flooded River Juba in southern Somalia , never stood a chance. There was nowhere to go. Ali’s city of Jilib was under attack. Repeated airstrikes, said the mother of six, were pinning its population beside the rising river.

“The drones come all the time,” said the 27-year-old. “We hear them constantly. They kill animals, civilians. The town is big but destruction is everywhere.”

Cayni Ali with her child Mandeq at a health centre in Kismayo, Somalia. Photograph: Hugh Kinsella Cunningham

Asho Omar from Malenda, a village near Jilib, described “constant” airstrikes that had forced people towards the banks of the Juba.

“The airstrikes are everywhere; it is difficult to move. So many people have been killed.”

Their testimony offers a rare glimpse of life inside the stronghold of al-Shabaab , the Islamist militants who control 30% of Somalia.…