An analysis of the two hour film “Black Hawk Down” on the 1993 United States military battle in Somalia.
This paper examines the film “Black Hawk Down,” directed by Ridley Scott on the battle for Somalia in 1993 and the Mogadishu affair. It summarizes of the film and describes its historical accuracy. The paper describes how the film brings out the heroism under fire by which every soldier of the U.S. Rangers and Delta Force reside under.
“Somalia – 1993. Two sides were fighting against each other to gain control of Somalia. One was led by “a member of the Abgal (Hawiye) subclan, and the other by General Mohamed Farad Aidid, a member of the Habr Gidir (Hawiye) subclan” (Lefebvre 49). By November 1991, thousands of Mogadishu residents died when fighting began between the two factions. The capital, Mogadishu, became two separate “cities,” separated by a “green line” between the “northern part of the city controlled by Ali Mahdi’s forces and the southern half in the hands of Aidid (Lefebvre 49). Both factions said the food shipments meant for the starving population belonged to them, and as a result, food was not getting to the people.