• World Report 2013: Somalia
    Jan 10, 2013
    Somalia’s long-running armed conflict continues to leave civilians dead, wounded, and displaced in large numbers. Although the Islamist armed group al-Shabaab lost ground in 2012, abandoning control of key towns such as Beletweyne, Baidoa, and the strategic port city of Kismayo, it continues to carry out attacks and targeted killings, including in the capital, Mogadishu.
  • World Report 2012: Somalia
    Jan 22, 2012
    The year was marked by ongoing fighting in Somalia and abuses by the warring parties, including indiscriminate attacks harming civilians. While the armed Islamist al-Shabaab group continued to control more territory than any other group in South and Central Somalia, the Transitional Federal Government of Somalia (TFG)—with the support of the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) and militias aligned to the TFG, notably Ahlu Sunna Wal Jama’a (ASWJ) and Raskamboni—gained control over new areas in Mogadishu, the capital, and small areas along the border with Kenya and Ethiopia. On August 6 al-Shabaab withdrew from Mogadishu, citing tactical reasons, but has continued to attack the capital, including with suicide bombings.
  • World Report 2011: Somalia
    Jan 24, 2011
    The Transitional Federal Government (TFG), supported by the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM), lost control of further territory to opposition groups in Somalia in 2010, with bitter fighting imposing a significant toll on civilians, especially during an upsurge of attacks in August and September. Al-Shabaab and Hizbul Islam, the militant Islamist groups that spearhead the opposition, consolidated control over much of south-central Somalia, where the population experienced relative stability but also increasingly harsh and intolerant repression, in the name of Sharia law. A humanitarian crisis exists across the country. Humanitarian agencies have limited access due to ongoing insecurity, and armed opposition groups threatened humanitarian workers, journalists, and civil society activists with attack.
  • Somalia
    Jan 20, 2010
    Somalia’s people continue to endure one of the world’s worst human rights catastrophes. Hopes of peace following the installation of a new Transitional Federal Government (TFG) under President Sheikh Sharif Ahmed in early 2009 have been dashed. The capital Mogadishu is wracked by indiscriminate warfare in which all parties are implicated in war crimes or other serious human rights abuses. Much of the rest of the country is now under the control of local administrations linked to armed opposition groups. In many of these areas the population has suffered abusive application of Sharia law and forced conscription of civilians, including children, as militia fighters.
  • Somalia
    Jan 14, 2009
    An increasingly brutal conflict pits a deeply fragmented insurgency against Somalia's weak Transitional Federal Government (TFG) and Ethiopian military forces that are in Somalia to support it. All sides to this conflict have regularly committed serious violations of international humanitarian law amounting to war crimes with complete impunity and with devastating impact on Somalia's civilian population.