Jack Laurence

So why would running toward a mosque feel like running towards safety rather than straight back into danger?

Well, the honest answer, of course, is they didn't know for sure that it would.

They had no idea who was inside, no idea whether the imam would help them or hand them straight back.

No idea whether the congregation would see two Western faces burst through the door and reach for a phone.

In Somalia in 2008, with al-Shabaab controlling large parts of the country and embedding itself in communities across the region, the man standing at the front of that mosque could have been anyone.

But they'd made a calculation, not a certainty, a calculation.

A mosque was a public space with a religious leader who had standing and authority in the community.

If they could get inside, declare themselves as Muslims and appeal directly to that authority, they were at least giving themselves a fighting chance.

But the open street didn't offer.

On the street, there were two obvious foreigners running from something.

In a mosque, reciting the Shahada in front of witnesses, they were at least something more complicated than that.

It might work.

It might not.

But there was only one way to find out.

Who this mystery man was and whether or not Nigel and Amanda would have been safe leaving with him, they will never know.

Nigel would see him one last time before the ordeal was over.

But here they were in an ever increasingly chaotic situation, surrounded by people arguing, pushing, their captors still inside trying to get them back, until all of a sudden the mood shifts to utter fear and panic as people begin to scramble.

and that would be their last opportunity to ever try anything like that again as the car they're bundled into speeds off and away from the chaos that is behind them but the question again becomes where are they going what will happen to them

And will they die?

It's 2008 in Somalia.