Background

Since the fall of the Siad Barre regime in 1991, state collapse and civil war have contributed to make Somalia one of the world’s worst human rights and humanitarian crises. While the country is prone to cyclical drought, it is the persistent violence against civilians, repeated displacement, and predatory looting by armed groups that have produced serious famine on several occasions in the last 20 years.

A significant proportion of Somalia’s estimated total population of 7.5 million has been displaced—sometimes repeatedly—either internally or beyond the country’s borders as a result of conflict and food insecurity.[2] According to the United Nations, 1.3 million people are currently displaced within Somalia,[3] and there were by July 2012 more than a million Somali refugees in the Horn of Africa.[4]

The 2011 famine followed intense armed conflict in Mogadishu as well as ongoing insecurity and intermittent fighting in southern areas of the country. It was exacerbated by severe restrictions on access for humanitarian agencies. Some of the most important organizations providing food aid had withdrawn or been banned from working in areas under the control of the armed Islamist group al-Shabaab.[5] Al-Shabaab’s increasing “taxation” of communities under its control further eroded the coping mechanisms of an already vulnerable civilian population.[6]

There were many parallels between the 2011 famine and a Somali famine in the early 1990s that affected similar geographic areas and communities.[7] Between 1991 and 1993 fighting in Mogadishu and subsequent clan-based fighting severely damaged harvests in the fertile southern regions of the country. Tens of thousands of people were displaced.[8] The Rahanweyn and Bantu communities living in the inter-riverine areas of the Bay, Bakool, and Shabelle regions were particularly affected both by the fighting that engulfed their land; the looting of resources, food, and crops by different clan militia; and the ensuing famine.[9] As in 2011 these communities—which have limited links with Somali communities in the diaspora and neighboring countries—were primarily displaced internally, with some fleeing to Mogadishu.[10] According to estimates by humanitarian organizations at the time, around 300,000 people lost their lives in the early 1990s famine, predominantly from the Rahanweyn and Bantu communities.[11]

As would occur prior to the 2011 famine, in the early 1990s increasing armed attacks on aid workers and looting of relief constrained the provision of humanitarian assistance.[12] The obstruction and looting of aid by clan-based and freelance militias in 1992 prompted the first UN intervention known as the United Nations Operation in Somalia (UNOSOM) to monitor a ceasefire and protect aid workers. By 1995, the subsequent UN and United States interventions were deemed a failure and were withdrawn. Between the mid-1990s to the mid-2000s, political and humanitarian aid, and general international interest in Somalia, dwindled as successive transitional Somali governments tried and failed to restore a functioning state.[13]

In December 2006 Ethiopia intervened militarily in Somalia at the request of the UN-backed Transitional Federal Government, ousting the Islamic Courts Union, an alliance of Islamic courts that had gained control of Mogadishu and other parts of south-central in mid-2006. The subsequent fighting pitted Ethiopian forces, the TFG, and allied militia against an increasingly powerful insurgency, including al-Shabaab. All of the warring parties were responsible for serious abuses in this period, including unlawful killings, rape, torture, and looting committed in a context of complete impunity.[14]

Ethiopian forces withdrew from Mogadishu in early 2009 following the UN-brokered Djibouti peace agreement,[15] but Ethiopian withdrawal did not bring the peace and stability that many Somalis hoped for. Conflict resumed in Mogadishu, this time between the TFG forces and the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) on the one side, and al-Shabaab and other armed groups on the other.[16] Fighting intensified in 2010 and 2011 as TFG and AMISOM forces tried to extend and consolidate territorial gains. Despite the increasing humanitarian needs, access for humanitarian organizations after 2009 was severely restricted by al-Shabaab’s attacks on and killings of aid workers, and their restrictions on aid delivery, bolstered by al-Shabaab’s expanded control in much of the country.[17]

Developments in 2011 and 2012

Although al-Shabaab withdrew from much of Mogadishu in August 2011, the group has continued to carry out attacks in the capital with grenades, improvised explosive devices (IEDs), and suicide bombings.

Much of the conflict in late 2011 and 2012 shifted to south-central Somalia as the TFG, AMISOM, and allied forces tried to push back al-Shabaab from areas of control. The fighting caused further displacement of civilians.

On October 16, 2011, Kenya unilaterally intervened in Somalia to conduct military operations against al-Shabaab. In July 2012, Kenyan troops formally joined AMISOM, and alongside Somali militia, have been fighting al-Shabaab in Gedo and the Juba areas near the Kenyan border.[18]

Ethiopian forces also redeployed in Somalia in 2011,[19] conducting operations with two Somali militias: Ahlu Sunna Wal Jama’a (a Sufi militia) and Shabelle Valley State (SVS) (a regional militia), to take control of Beletweyne, along the border with Ethiopia, in December 2011, and then Baidoa, the capital of the Bay region in February 2012.[20]

Throughout 2012 the AMISOM, Ethiopian, TFG forces, and allied militia moved into many other key towns in southern Somalia, including Afgooye, Merka and Afmadow. In late September, following a Kenyan-led air and naval offensive, al-Shabaab fighters withdrew from Kismayo, the strategic southern port town and a major source of al-Shabaab’s revenue.[21]

Mogadishu during the Famine

The economic, social, and political context in Mogadishu at the time of the famine contributed to abuses against the displaced. Relevant factors included the governance situation and security vacuum following al-Shabaab’s withdrawal in mid-2011, the economy and system developed around aid distribution in Mogadishu, and clan dynamics that rendered the displaced population from Bay, Bakool, and the Shabelle regions more vulnerable.

Displacement as a Result of Famine

The UN declared famine conditions in July 2011, but early warnings of impending food shortages were already present in late 2010.[22] Conflict, social inequalities, and the absence of key organizations that typically provide food aid exacerbated the food shortages: the UN’s World Food Programme (WFP) and US-based nongovernmental organizations such as CARE[23] had limited access beyond Mogadishu due to both restrictions by al-Shabaab and restrictions imposed by US counterterrorism sanctions that affected aid delivered to areas under al-Shabaab control. The cumulative effect of all of these factors was a serious reduction in the humanitarian community’s capacity to respond to the unfolding crisis.[24] As a result, in the first quarter of 2011 there was a massive influx of displaced people from the affected regions into Mogadishu, where assistance was more readily available.[25] Others affected by the famine fled south towards refugee camps in Dadaab, Kenya, or west to Dolo Ado, Ethiopia.[26]

By July 2011 the UN declared famine in Bakool and Lower Shabelle regions, and by August the UN declared six regions of Somalia in a state of famine, including Mogadishu, particularly its IDP community.[27]

At the height of the famine, an estimated four million people—more than half of the resident Somali population—were reported to be in need of humanitarian assistance, around three million of whom were in the south in predominantly al-Shabaab-controlled areas.[28] Agencies’ assessments of the total number of IDPs in Mogadishu varied, but estimated that at least 150,000 people arrived in Mogadishu since 2011 as a result of the famine.[29]

By February 2012 the UN declared that the famine in Somalia was over but stressed that at least two million people were still in need of emergency humanitarian assistance.[30]

During the 2011 famine, humanitarian agencies faced a variety of challenges. As mentioned above, al-Shabaab banned the WFP, several other UN agencies, and most nongovernmental organizations from working in areas under its control in 2009 and 2010. This ban was extended to an additional 16 agencies and nongovernmental organizations in November 2011.[31] On January 30, 2012, al-Shabaab also banned the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), the only remaining organization capable of carrying out large-scale food aid distribution in al-Shabaab areas.[32]

Since 2008, humanitarian organizations have also been affected by counterterrorism legislation such as the United States Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) sanctions that criminalize assistance or financial payments to groups designated by the US government as foreign terrorist organizations, including al-Shabaab. The sanctions led to a significant decrease in US funding of humanitarian organizations and new, burdensome measures on those receiving US aid.[33]

Governance in Mogadishu

Other factors contributed to the dangerous situation facing displaced people in Mogadishu at the time of the famine. Mogadishu in 2011 and early 2012 was a war-ravaged city still wracked by fighting and lawlessness. Until mid-2011 the TFG controlled only a small section of southern Mogadishu and generally failed to provide any services to the population in these areas.

Al-Shabaab’s withdrawal in August 2011 created a security vacuum that the TFG forces were largely unable to fill. The transitional government lacked the means, and it seemed the will, to bridge this vacuum. Embroiled in internal disputes and focused on the political process leading up to the end of the transition, the TFG leadership failed to serve the vulnerable IDP population under its control. This vacuum allowed clan and freelance militias to resurge, many of them directly or indirectly linked to increasingly powerful district commissioners and local officials who emerged to assume control of Mogadishu’s districts and its economy.

After a one-year postponement, on August 20, 2012, the transition period ended, paving the way for a new Somali administration, including a new president, prime minister, and speaker of parliament. Both Somalis and Somalia’s supporters abroad heralded the process as a break with the past, pointing in particular to the selection of a leadership with a civil society background as a positive step. However, the new leadership faces enormous challenges in Mogadishu alone, chief among them, greater accountability of government forces and reining in the militias, including government-allied militia, that continue to exert significant control over much of the city.

Protection of IDPs and improvements in their living conditions, starting with steps to improve their basic rights, will be an important test of the new administration. It is a test that the previous transitional government failed, as this report describes.

Reliance on Gatekeepers

Ever since the relief efforts of the 1980s, and especially during and following the massive international involvement in the famine of the early 1990s, humanitarian assistance—specifically food aid—has played a key role in the political economy of Somalia. Patterns of control of aid and of the vulnerable communities who rely on it have become entrenched, with armed groups constantly vying for control of the resources and power associated with aid.[34]

A 2010 report of the UN Monitoring Group on Somalia and Eritrea described the importance of food aid, and specifically WFP assistance in the Somali economy.[35] The report described the diversion of WFP assistance in Somalia as “large scale,” suggesting that around 50 percent of WFP assistance was being diverted, mainly through the creation of a cartel of contractors and transporters. It noted that in some cases the assistance was used to directly support warring parties.[36]

While large-scale diversion of food aid in the 2011 famine has to date not been documented, a 2012 report of the UN Monitoring Group described the means and methods of diversion at the camp level, the role of gatekeepers, and the implication of district and local officials in the process.[37] One in-depth media investigation documented diversion at WFP wet feeding (cooked food) sites.[38]

The UN’s declaration of famine in July 2011 led to a massive increase in the amount of emergency assistance coming into Mogadishu. According to Somalia analyst Ken Menkhaus:

The TFG leadership, and many (though not all) of the Somalis formally or nominally a part of the TFG as civil servants, security forces, paramilitaries, district commissioners, parliamentarians, and ministers approached the flood of famine relief pouring into Mogadishu as an opportunity to enrich themselves.[39]

At the level of IDP camps or settlements, direct control of the camp, its population, and the assistance brought to the camp is often in the hands of camp managers. Camp managers, more commonly known as “gatekeepers” or “black cats,” have existed throughout Somalia’s civil war and exist throughout the country. However, with the massive influx of aid into Mogadishu during the 2011 famine, the gatekeeper phenomenon appears to have taken on new dimensions. Gatekeepers are sometimes from the displaced community but more often in Mogadishu they are landowners or businesspeople from the local clan who have access to land and links to local clan militia or local authorities.

As the UN Monitoring Group report noted, often gatekeepers are intimately linked to district commissioners, their militia, and other local level authorities, including divisional leaders.[40] While the significance of gatekeepers varies across the city, they are the people who often represent the IDPs to aid agencies, distribute assistance, and often pay for protection or manage the relationship with landlords, local militia, political powerbrokers, and district commissioners.

Hosting displaced communities is a lucrative endeavor. As Ifrax D., a 32-year-old displaced woman living in Ufurow camp in Hodan, said of gatekeepers: “The people are assets for them, they are making business on them, they are depriving them of their rights.”[41]

Displaced people from weaker clans or minority groups are particularly vulnerable to exploitation and abuse at the hands of the gatekeepers. As Menkaus points out: “Too often, in the many deals struck over allocation of food aid locally, the weakest lineages are given short shrift. They are also the main victims of diversion of food aid by ‘black cats’ and others.”

The United Nations Monitoring Group on Somalia and Eritrea noted in mid-2012 that:

The withdrawal of Al-Shabaab forces from Mogadishu on 2 August 2011 should, in principle, have improved access throughout the capital for aid agencies, and facilitated the direct provision of humanitarian assistance to vulnerable Somalis. The reality, however, was quite different: UN agencies, INGOs [international nongovernmental organizations] and their national counterparts were confronted instead with pervasive and sophisticated networks of interference: individuals and organizations who positioned themselves to harness humanitarian assistance flows for their own personal or political advantage. These “gatekeepers” often exercised control over the location of IDP camps; the delivery, distribution and management of assistance; and even physical access to IDP camps and feeding centres, through their influence over the “security” forces deployed to such sites.[42]

Gatekeepers are not alone in diverting food aid and seeking to control and exploit assistance at the local level. As a former senior TFG official told Human Rights Watch: “The IDPs don’t get humanitarian assistance directly, but through district commissioners, militias and gatekeepers: this is the biggest business in Mogadishu.”[43]

As a senior UN official put it, “The aid business, the whole chain is eating, the gatekeepers just steal what is remaining.” However, from the perspective of the displaced, at the camp level the gatekeeper is the central figure.

As explained above, given the absence of formal camps or any kind of centralized registration and government control, it is the gatekeepers who are often the interface with humanitarian agencies in Mogadishu.[44] Some humanitarian agencies have tried to minimize gatekeeper control over assistance and circumvent gatekeepers, while others have opted to end dry food distribution in camps. Some humanitarian representatives admitted having very little room for manoeuver. With the exception of the ICRC, which carried out a two-month assessment of local level dynamics prior to distribution, other organizations tended to rely on informal mechanisms, particularly their local partners or staff, to assess the local context and determine abusive gatekeepers and local-level actors. Because the UN directly implements very few projects in Mogadishu because of security reasons, it relies heavily on local implementing partners.

This report focuses on the districts of Wadajir, Dharkenley, and Hodan, where most of the displaced people who arrived in Mogadishu in 2011 are located, as well as one camp in Waberi district.[45] The gatekeeper and formal and informal security set-up differs from area to area, but some generalizations can be made.

In Wadajir district, the main camp, Rajo, which some humanitarian actors have described as a model camp, is administered and controlled by the district commissioner of Wadajir and the divisional leader. Security is provided by the district commissioner’s militia. The militia is Abgal, a Hawiye sub-clan dominant in Mogadishu. Part of this militia is reported to have been integrated into the government forces in recent years.[46] Siliga camp, also in Wadajir, includes one section that is controlled by Hawadle militia, another Hawiye sub-clan prevalent in Mogadishu, and another section controlled by an “umbrella” organization called Saredo, which is run by the wife of former Member of Parliament (MP) Osman Ali Atto, who are from the Sa’ad clan.[47] According to a recent study of political dynamics in Mogadishu, militias in Wadajir are affiliated to members of the local authorities, though this has not been independently verified by Human Rights Watch.[48]

Badbaado, the biggest camp in Dharkenley district, is administered by the government Disaster Management Agency and since October 2011 security is provided by police posted at the camp. However, security was initially provided by a commander reporting to the district commissioner of Dharkenley. Militias under the command of the district commissioner and deputy district commissioner are reportedly sometimes present in the camp. These militias are from two different Abgal sub-clans and have, as described below, clashed on occasion. Part of the district commissioner’s militia is reported to have been integrated into the government forces.[49] In Hodan district the situation is quite different, with a number of camps, gatekeepers, and militia; there are certain camps reportedly controlled by Sa’ad gatekeepers and militia where the Hodan district commissioner cannot even venture. One UN official told Human Rights Watch that the militias in this area are “better equipped and armed” than the police.

While not all gatekeepers seek to abuse IDPs in their camps, serious abuses are taking place at the hands of gatekeepers and affiliated militia, described in greater detail below.

Clan Dynamics

Internally displaced people throughout the world are particularly vulnerable: uprooted from their social networks, deprived of their livelihoods, often living on land belonging to others, leaving them open to abuse. The clan system in Somalia adds an additional layer of vulnerability to those most affected by the 2011 famine. While clan identity is only one among several factors contributing to the abuses against IDPs in Mogadishu, it can have enormous consequences. As Ken Menkhaus points out:

One of the most troubling but least discussed aspects of Somalia’s recurring humanitarian crises is the low sense of Somali social and ethical obligation to assist countrymen from weak lineages and social groups. This stands in sharp contrast to the very powerful and non-negotiable obligation Somalis have to assist members of their own lineage.[50]

A June 2012 IDP assessment in Mogadishu found that 60 percent of internally displaced people originated from Bay, Bakool, and the two Shabelle regions.[51] While an accurate picture of the famine-affected population is not available, it is believed that the majority of IDPs from southern Somalia displaced as a result of the famine in mid-2011 were from the Rahanweyn and Bantu communities.[52] Human Rights Watch’s research focused on newly arrived displaced persons in Mogadishu, therefore the majority of the interviews were with members of these communities. Both their social status, not seen as being one of the noble clans, and their livelihood strategies, being primarily agro-pastoralists and farmers, rendered them particularly vulnerable to famine and later to abuses in Mogadishu.[53] In Mogadishu the most powerful clans, notably in the districts on which this research focuses on, are from the Hawiye clan group. Neither of these two communities have established links with the Hawiye. The more limited international reach of the Rahanweyn and Bantu, including fewer links in the diaspora and neighboring countries, is also believed to undermine their social support mechanisms.[54]

While part of Somalia’s clan structure, the Rahanweyn are not considered as one of the “noble” pastoralist clans.[55] The Rahanweyn, or Digil-Mirifle, are agro-pastoralists and live predominantly in the inter-riverine area in Bay, Bakool, and to a lesser extent in Lower Shabelle and Middle Juba. They have traditionally been politically marginalized, although the last speaker of parliament under the TFG and the current speaker are both Rahanweyn. The Mirifle in particular speak a distinct Somali dialect known as Afmay. Although the Rahanweyn have traditionally been viewed as more socially diverse than other clans, integrating outsiders including Bantus, they do not have established protection networks with other clans and host communities in Mogadishu.[56] While this is not the only reason Rahanweyn IDPs have been vulnerable to abuse, it contributes to their vulnerability to threats from militia linked to more powerful clans.

The other group believed to have been disproportionately affected by the famine is the Bantu. The Bantu are not part of the Somali clan lineage system, and are predominantly farmers. Historically, the Bantu have faced significant discrimination, marginalization, and persecution because of their distinct culture and characteristics; a significant proportion of the Bantu are descendants of former slaves.[57] Like the Rahanweyn, they traditionally do not carry arms or have their own militia, rendering them particularly vulnerable to armed clans. Certain Bantu have integrated into the Rahanweyn clan but are generally prohibited from inter-marriage with the clans.[58]

Clan identity remains fundamental for access to protection and justice in Somalia, partly due to the traditional xeer system (customary laws that regulate intra- and inter-clan disputes, among other issues), rendering the Rahanweyn and Bantu more vulnerable.[59] According to research carried out in Puntland, minority clans are also more likely to be discriminated against within the formal judicial system because police, who tend to be from the majority clans, side with stronger clans.[60]