Somalia: Government forces accused of torture

Aweys Osman Yusuf

Mogadishu 28, July.07  Abdulahi Abdi Mohamed, 13 year old, student learning the holy Qur’an in Madarasa (School) in the capital said he was sized and tortured by the government troops based around SOS hospital in north of Mogadishu, the Somali capital in early Saturday morning while on his way to the school.

His parents said their child and two other people were walking in the road near SOS when the soldiers caught them. “They brutally beat the three of them meanly,” they told Shabelle reporter, Abdi Nour Kadiye, who interviewed the victim at his residence in the area.

Our reporter said the victim who was showing several injuries on his body including the head, pointed out that he was holding the book of the holy Quar’an in his hand when he, along with two men, were seized. “After they hit us badly and asked me more questions, they let me go and took the other two men in their battle gun with them,” he said.

Government officials in Mogadishu, however, deny that there was an increase of government police brutality against civilians.

On July 26, Mogadishu's Internally Displaced People in Heliwa district staged a huge protest against Somali government forces who were accused of raping five refugee women including a teenage a girl in a refugee camp in the district.

Mumino Mohammed, one of the victims, told Shabelle that she had 15 days old baby. "I gave birth a baby 15 days ago, I told them, three soldiers who came into my shelter, that I have very small child but they raped me the three of them, despite my screams and begging that should leave me alone," she said.

Her husband, Aden Osman, said he was told to get out of the shelter by the troops with a gun, while butting him.

"They were several men armed with AK 47 guns and they said they were searching for insurgents and they began beating me until I went out conscious and then went for the women in the camp, raping them," he said.

Abdifitah Nour Sabriye, the deputy of Mogadishu mayor, told Shabelle after he was contacted on Thursday that there were no government troops who raped IDPs.

"First, no group can stage a demonstration in Mogadishu without our knowledge and there are no government forces that raped women," he said.

Since the massive house-to-house search operations for insurgents and weapons conducted by the government and Ethiopian forces started in early July, several civil rights violations have been reported, while local rights organizations voiced concerns over the escalation of violence, human rights breaching and killings of innocent people in the volatile city.