Young doctors beat odds to graduate in Mogadishu

Overcoming huge odds, 20 doctors and dozens of teachers will graduate from university in Somalia this week, the first graduation ceremony for almost two decades in this Africa state.

Somalis are renowned for their entrepreneurship, resilience and plain ability to survive the anarchy they have endured since the early 1990s. Those skills have been tested to the limit by an insurgency that erupted nearly two years ago.

"We could be a leader among African universities if it were not for the security problems," said Abdirizak Yusuf, head of the medical students' association at Mogadishu's Benadir University, which will hold the graduation ceremony on Dec 4.