2013_09_01_Mogadishu_Taxi_Company_004

A young boy stands next to cars of the Mogadishu Taxi Company next to the company's head office in the Somali capital Mogadishu, 01 September 2013. Operating since the end of May of this year in the city's dusty and once again bustling streets and thoroughfares, the MTC's distinctive yellow and purple cars offer customers taxi fares around Mogadishu at competitive rates and in the first 3 months of operations, the company has increased it's fleet of vehicles from an initial 25 to over 100. The company, according to one of it's drivers, also enables employment opportunities for Somalia's youth following two decades of conflict in the Horn of Africa nation that shattered a generation. Now, thanks to the relative peace that has followed the departure of the Al-Qaeda-affiliated extremist group Al Shabaab from the city; an internationally recognised government for the first time in years and thousands of Diaspora Somalis returning home to invest in and rebuild their country, the MTC is one of many new companies establishing itself in the new Mogadishu and offering services that were hitherto impossible to provide. AU-UN IST PHOTO / STUART PRICE.