Mareeg Online
somalia news
Mogadishu, one of the world's most violent cities, has been ravaged by fighting that pits Somali troops and their Ethiopian allies against insurgents who are trying to topple the fragile administration. Thousands of civilians have been killed this year by roadside bombs, mortar and grenade attacks and land mines.
"None of the parties has taken — as international law requires — all feasible precautions to spare the civilian population from the effects of attacks," New York-based Human Rights Watch said in its 113-page report, "Shell shocked: Civilians Under Siege in Mogadishu."
"There is strong evidence that the indiscriminate bombardment of populated neighborhoods by Ethiopian forces was intentional," the report added. "Commanders who knowingly or recklessly order indiscriminate attacks are responsible for war crimes."
Somali and Ethiopian officials could not immediately be reached for comment.
A surge in fighting in March and April was some of the worst violence in Mogadishu in more than a decade, and lower-grade fighting continues nearly every day. Somalia has endured years of anarchy since warlords overthrew dictator Mohamed Siad Barre in 1991, then turned on each other.
The U.N.-backed government was formed in 2004 but has struggled to assert any real control.
Troops from Ethiopia — the region's military powerhouse — helped Somalia's government drive out a radical Islamic group in December, but a bloody insurgency soon began.
Somali officials have lamented the violence but blamed "terrorist" insurgents, saying they must be eliminated in order to pacify Mogadishu. The Human Rights Watch report said the operations have taken an appalling toll on civilians.
The report also said Ethiopian forces bombarded hospitals "repeatedly and without warning."
"This failure to spare them from bombardment indicates, at minimum, indiscriminate attacks and, at most, deliberate attacks on hospitals."
Violations by the insurgents include indiscriminate firing of mortar rounds into civilian areas; deployment of forces in densely populated neighborhoods; targeted killings of civilian officials of the transitional Somali government; and summary executions and mutilation of the bodies of captured combatants, the report said.
"The insurgency placed civilians at grave risk by deploying among them," said Kenneth Roth, executive director for Human Rights Watch.
Somali government forces failed to provide effective warnings to civilians in combat zones, looted property, impeded relief efforts for displaced people and mistreated dozens of people detained in mass arrests, the report said.
Human Rights Watch appealed to the international community for help, while denouncing "key players with strategic involvement in the region," such as the United States and the European Union, for inaction.
"As has been the case for more than a decade, the suffering of hundreds of thousands of Somali civilians was met with almost total silence," the report said.
John Holmes, the U.N. undersecretary-general for humanitarian affairs, also said earlier this year that the fighting violated international law. "When you have a pitched battle going on in a city full of civilians, that is not in accordance with the Geneva Conventions," he told The Associated Press in May.
Sudan Ali Ahmed, chairman of Elman Human Rights, an independent Somali group, told The Associated Press this month that 2,894 civilians have been killed since December. He said his organization collected the figures from hospitals, local residents and its own recording of burials in Mogadishu.
Somalia and Ethiopian officials refused to say how many of their troops have been wounded or killed, and no other groups have compiled figures. The chaos makes counting difficult, but witness reports indicate the numbers of combatants killed are far fewer than the civilian casualties. Somali officials say they are desperately trying to pacify Mogadishu, but they need to wipe out insurgents.
