From: Womens United Nations Report Network
[WUNRN_ListServe@LISTS.WUNRN.COM] on behalf of WUNRN [wunrn@WHATHELPS.COM]
Sent: Sunday, June 15, 2008 11:02 AM
To: WUNRN_ListServe@LISTS.WUNRN.COM
Subject: Somalia - Report of Attacks on Civilians in Somalia - Somali Women
& Girls
WUNRN
SOMALI WOMEN & GIRLS
Direct Link to Amnesty Report:
AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL
Somalia - Routinely Targeted: Attacks on Civilians in
Somalia
______________________________
SOMALIA: Amnesty
Report "Scratches Surface of Atrocities"
|
Up to a
million Somalis are internally displaced and living rough in camps, according
to aid agencies |
NAIROBI, 7
May 2008 (IRIN) - The Somali government denied claims by a rights group that
its forces and their Ethiopian allies were committing atrocities against the
civilian population - even as a civil society source said the report did not go
far enough.
Government spokesman Abdi Haji Gobdon told IRIN on 7 May
that in a war situation "some people may get caught in a crossfire but no
civilian is deliberately targeted", insisting that neither the TFG forces
nor their Ethiopian allies committed atrocities.
Gobdon said the report was "pure propaganda and
fabrication". He was reacting to a report issued on 6 May by Amnesty International (AI),
which has accused all parties to the conflict of committing war crimes against
the civilian population.
"The people of Somalia are being killed, raped,
tortured; looting is widespread and entire neighbourhoods are being destroyed,”
Michelle Kagari, Amnesty's Africa programme deputy director, said in the
report.
In one incident, a 56-year-old woman described to
Amnesty officials how Ethiopian troops raped a neighbour's 17-year-old daughter
in 2007 and that when the girl's two brothers, 13 and 14 years old, tried to
help her, Ethiopian soldiers gouged out their eyes with a bayonet.
In another, Amnesty reported, a 32-year-old man said he
saw his neighbours “slaughtered”, adding that he saw many men whose throats
were slit and whose bodies were left in the street.
"Some had their testicles cut off," the man
told Amnesty. He also saw women being raped.
Yet the real scale of Somalia's "dire" rights
crisis remained unknown because international aid agencies were under heavy
pressure not to expose the abuses they witnessed, Amnesty said, and local
journalists were often silenced by threats.
A civil society source in Mogadishu agreed and said the
report "only scratches the surface" and did not go far enough.
"It touches on a very small portion of what actually happens here,"
said the source, who requested anonymity.
He said that killings, rape and disappearances were
daily occurrences in Mogadishu.
The
testimony we received strongly suggests that war crimes and possibly crimes against
humanity have been committed by all parties
|
"As I speak to you we are looking for two young
men, Osman Mohamed Haji and Ahmed Abdulle Soomane, who disappeared on 24
March." He said no one knew who took them or why. "This is becoming
normal in Mogadishu," he said. "I have no doubt in my mind that war
crimes and crimes against humanity are being committed with tot al
impunity."
Amnesty’s Kagari said: "The testimony we received
strongly suggests that war crimes and possibly crimes against humanity have
been committed by all parties to the conflict in Somalia – and no one is being
held accountable."
The report also quoted witnesses who accused the
insurgent group Al Shabaab militia of indiscriminate attacks on civilians and
threatening journalists perceived as not favourable to them.
The report said the transitional government, as the
recognised government of Somalia, bore the primary responsibility for
protecting the human rights of the Somali people, adding that the Ethiopian
military, which is the main backer of the TFG, also bore responsibility.
It called for the “attacks on civilians by all parties
to stop immediately. Also, the international community must bear its own
responsibility for not putting consistent pressure on the TFG or the Ethiopian
government to stop their armed forces from committing egregious human rights
violations.”
Up to one million Somalis are internally displaced,
while an estimated 6,500 civilians have been killed since 2007.
Some 2.6 million Somalis need assistance. The figure is
expected to reach 3.5 million by the end of the year, if the situation does not
improve, according to the UN.
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