Abuses against Internally Displaced People in Mogadishu

The displaced Somalis who fled to Mogadishu over the last two years have been subjected to a range of serious human rights abuses, including rape, beatings, ethnic discrimination, and restrictions on access to food and shelter and freedom of movement.

Identifying the perpetrators of the abuses and their relationship with the authorities is often challenging given the plethora of armed groups in the city, including militias, and the ready availability of military uniforms. However, victims and witnesses of abuses often provide credible accounts that state security forces and government-allied militia, some of which are formally or informally entrusted with providing security in IDP settlements, are responsible for some of the abuses. Private individuals, including gatekeepers, and clan and freelance militia, have also committed abuses against the displaced for which they have not been held to account by the authorities.

Internally displaced people are accorded multiple protections under international human rights law,[61] and during the non-international armed conflict in Somalia, international humanitarian law.[62] It is first and foremost the responsibility of the government to ensure protection and assistance to populations under their effective control without discrimination.[63] The government is also prohibited from unnecessarily impeding access of humanitarian assistance to those in need.[64] Destruction, theft, and looting of humanitarian objects are prohibited.[65]

The various international legal protections afforded IDPs under international law can be found in the United Nations Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement, which provide an authoritative restatement of existing international human rights, humanitarian, and refugee law as it relates to the protection of internally displaced people.[66]

The UN Guiding Principles provide that IDPs “shall enjoy, in full equality, the same rights and freedoms under international and domestic law as do other persons in their country. They shall not be discriminated against in the enjoyment of any rights and freedoms on the ground that they are internally displaced.”[67] National authorities have the primary duty and responsibility to provide protection and humanitarian assistance to IDPs within their jurisdiction.[68]

IDPs shall be protected, for example, against rape, torture, cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, and other outrages upon personal dignity, such as acts of gender-specific violence, forced prostitution, and any form of indecent assault.[69] They shall have the right to liberty of movement and freedom to choose their residence, in particular the right to move freely in and out of camps or other settlements.[70]

 

Humanitarian assistance to IDPs shall not be diverted, in particular for political or military reasons.[71] All authorities concerned shall facilitate the free passage of humanitarian assistance and grant persons engaged in the provision of such assistance rapid and unimpeded access to the internally displaced.[72]

Additional protections are provided to IDPs under the regional Kampala Convention, which went into force in December 2012.[73] Somalia has signed but not yet ratified the convention,[74] obliging the government to refrain from acts that would defeat the object and purpose of the convention.[75]

Sexual and Gender Based Violence

Throughout the conflict in Somalia internally displaced women and girls have been particularly vulnerable to sexual violence. The extent of sexual and gender based violence (SGBV) against displaced women and girls is difficult to assess but is believed to be widespread though largely underreported throughout south-central Somalia. Reliable data on SGBV is lacking. Women and girls are often reluctant to report rape, including because of fear of reprisals by perpetrators, including government soldiers and allied militia; ostracism and stigma; lack of trust in the authorities; over-reliance on the informal justice system; and the limited medical, psychosocial, and legal services available to displaced communities. Women and girls in south-central Somalia more generally are also at risk of other forms of gender-based violence including domestic violence, female genital mutilation (FGM), and early forced marriage.[76]

International human rights law also contains protections from rape and other forms of sexual abuse through its prohibitions on torture and other ill-treatment, slavery, forced prostitution, and discrimination based on sex.[77] A state must refrain from, and prevent, sexual and gender based violence of all forms against IDPs, including rape and sexual exploitation.[78] The Convention on the Rights of the Child and the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child contain additional protections for children.[79] International humanitarian law prohibits acts of sexual violence, prohibiting both states and non-state armed groups from committing rape and other forms of sexual violence.[80]

Human Rights Watch documented several cases of rape in the second half of 2011, mostly in Badbaado camp, in Dharkenley district, a camp that was established by the authorities in mid-2011 as a result of the influx of people into Mogadishu. Incidents of rape were also documented in 2012 in other camps and settlements, including Siliga camp in Wadajir district, Midnimo camp in Tarbuunka district, and Milk Factory camp in Hodan district. Data collected by local organizations working with survivors of SGBV showed an increased number of incidents of rape of displaced people, almost exclusively women and girls, in the second half of 2012. According to the United Nations, over 800 cases of rape were reported in Mogadishu and the surrounding areas between September and late November 2012.[81] Whether these numbers are the result of increased reporting, improved data collection, or an increase in incidents is unclear.

Human Rights Watch research found that armed men in uniform, including government-allied militia and government forces, have been responsible for a significant number of incidents of rape of internally displaced women and girls since July 2011. These included some security personnel who were posted in the camps to provide security. These accounts are supported by NGO and UN reports that conclude that armed and uniformed men, including government allied militias and men in TFG military and police uniform, are the main perpetrators of rape against IDPs.[82]

Quman M., 23, was nine months pregnant when she was gang-raped one night in Badbaado camp by men in TFG military uniform. She told Human Rights Watch:

Three men raped me, and another one was holding a gun on me. They raped me. They didn’t hit me, but they all raped me. I was sleeping and I woke up to discover that someone was pointing a gun on me and a flashlight in my eyes. When I got up, they told me to keep silent and when they all finished they left me. When they were leaving they were in uniform, they wore the mixed light brown uniform of the forces, which the military people wear. They were young men, they were not old men. One of the men was arrested the same day… he was released the same day. When they raped I finished the ninth month of my pregnancy. The pain, which started when they raped me, never left me until I delivered the baby.[83]

According to the United Nations, around 30 percent of victims of sexual violence are girls younger than 18.[84] A Somali NGO working with victims of SGBV noted that girls aged between 12 and 17 are particularly vulnerable to abuse.[85]

A significant number of incidents of rape take place at night, when women and girls are in their huts or makeshift shelters.[86] Safiyo Y., 25, was raped and shot in the leg by a government soldier in Siliga camp, Wadajir district, in the section of the camp that is controlled by Hawadle militia, on October 19, 2011, while she slept in a hut next to her husband.

It was midnight. I was sleeping with my children. I woke up as he [a government soldier] started to open my legs and came in me. … I resisted and I tried to run from him and I screamed. People woke up, and he shot me with four rounds.[87]

Safiyo Y.’s leg had to be amputated.

A 30-year-old blind woman was in her hut in the same camp when she was attacked by an armed man on the night of October 18, 2012:

Three days ago, I was asleep with my children and I heard noises. A man pointed a gun at me then he hit me on the chest with the butt of the gun and the forehead and then he strangled me. I told him: “What do you want? Can you not see I am blind?” and he told me not to make a noise. He later raped me inside my tent. My child is traumatized.[88]

IDPs and local organizations told Human Rights Watch that incidents of rape increased during food distribution as armed men, including government soldiers and militia, come to the IDP areas to get food.[89]

Displaced women and girls and their families have limited means of protection against rape given the context of insecurity in which they live. The destruction or absence of traditional protection mechanisms, especially clan protection, that occurs from being displaced contributes to their vulnerability along with lack of shelter, access to livelihoods, and the culture of impunity that has characterized the conflict in Somalia.[90] The presence of a male relative does not always protect women against abuse; in fact, male relatives are often powerless in the face of armed men. A 25-year-old woman was gang-raped by four armed men in government uniform in Badbaado in front of her husband. She said:

It was 1 a.m. I was sleeping and my husband was sleeping. Two men stepped over my husband. One stood at the side of my head. He held a gun on my heart and told me not to move and not to shout. After the other came from my legs he handed his gun to the one standing at my head.

The two others stood over my husband, one from the legs’ side and the other at his head. They took my husband out of the room. The room [in the makeshift house] was too small. The men tied my husband’s hands back, and blindfolded him. They put a piece of cloth in my mouth to prevent me from shouting, and they covered my eyes with a sheet and they all raped me unkindly. They treated me very awfully.[91]

Traditional clan protections for weak clans and minority groups from outside Mogadishu, such as the Rahanweyn, no longer appear to function in Mogadishu. So women and girls from clans that are weak clans in Mogadishu are particularly vulnerable. One of the few ways for women, girls, and their relatives to prevent the abuses is to flee the camp. The prevalence of rape in Badbaado camp led many IDPs to leave the camp in late 2011 and move to other settlements or IDP areas in the town.[92]

A major reason that the numbers of women and girls that have been subjected to sexual violence in Mogadishu’s IDP camps is likely to be much higher than reported is that victims fear the social stigma of reporting rape, reprisals from their attackers, or do not know their rights. A 70-year-old woman living in Midnimo camp who escaped an attempted rape explained:

The women hide their cases because these people are illiterate and came from the rural areas. They have no idea about the cities, and are surprised that they are attacked and raped by men in the government uniform. So they feel ashamed to say they were raped. Everyone raped runs from the camp to hide herself from people who know her case, and they don’t want any more people to know about it.[93]

Similarly, a 14-year-old girl living in Amara camp in Tarbuunka who was sexually assaulted by boys in the camp and a relative of the gatekeeper described the particular social stigma facing girls who are raped:

In Somalia to break your virginity with rape is humiliation. It can change the rest of your future. Such girls will never get the man they love. They end up dead or turn to become prostitutes.[94]

Staff from a local NGO working with SGBV survivors described the insecurity in which IDPs are living as one of the main reasons more do not come forward to file a complaint or seek redress.[95] The father of a young woman who was raped by four men in government military uniform said: “We don’t know anyone here. We are new to Mogadishu, so we didn’t try to go to justice, because the commander was harassing us at the time my daughter was raped. So how I can trust anyone here? We must keep silent.”[96]

While Human Rights Watch did not carry out a thorough assessment of services available to survivors of rape, UN and NGO staff raised serious concerns about the lack of services, particularly medical services and medication, available to survivors of rape. In 2013 a displaced woman who alleged that she was raped by members of the military was arrested, interrogated without access to a lawyer, and then presented by the police to the media. The case highlighted both the dangers inherent in reporting abuses by security forces and the police’s lack of capacity to provide appropriate response to victims of sexual violence. Furthermore, the prosecution used what they claimed were the woman’s medical records, as she had sought medical assistance following her alleged rape, against her in court, raising further questions about the ability of service providers to guarantee privacy and confidentiality.[97] Research on SGBV in contexts around the world shows that a lack of available services discourages victims from coming forward.[98]

Mistreatment and Discrimination

Those whose mobile phones are robbed are Digil and Mirifle. Those who are in trouble are Digil and Mirifle. They are my people, so we think that we are punished in the camp because of our ethnicity, and when we were taken there we thought a government was handling our problems. We never thought clan militia in government uniforms would oppress us. [99]

—33-year-old IDP man, Badbaado, September 3, 2011

Displaced people living in the camps investigated by Human Rights Watch reported various abuses that have become part of their daily lives in Mogadishu, making their precarious existence even more difficult.

Human Rights Watch heard numerous allegations from displaced people that militias controlled by or linked to gatekeepers, district commissioners, including militias linked to the government, committed routine abuses, including beatings, against displaced people living in camps.

Displaced people living in several camps in Tarbuunka in Hodan district that are run by a gatekeeper also known as Saredo and her husband Gardhere, said that militias working for Saredo routinely inspect IDP tents donated by Turkish NGOs, and beat IDPs whose tents they deem dirty. [100] “My husband also was beaten with the back of the gun,” a displaced woman in one of her camps told Human Rights Watch. “They came to us and told him that the tents are for them so that we must keep them clean. He resisted and told them that some white people gave the tents to us, and it’s ours, not theirs, and they beat him.” [101]

In Rajo camp, the militia controlling the camp, which is under the command of the Wadajir district commissioner and one of the divisional leaders, also beat IDPs, especially during distributions. According to Getachew S., 42, the militias beat up IDPs soon after the district commissioner completes his inspection of food distribution. They start beating people again as they are lining up to receive food. He said that, “The security forces don’t beat the people when he [the district commissioner] is there. They fear him, but when he is gone they start dealing with the people very wildly. They beat us.” [102]

Abuses against IDPs are at times directly linked to their clan identity. They are discriminated against and abused by gatekeepers, militias, and local authorities.

Human Rights Watch heard from IDPs that militias linked to district commissioners and others verbally abuse Rahanweyn IDPs. They are called “Elay” (a sub-clan of Rahanweyn). They are also accused of being al-Shabaab supporters.[103] Al-Shabaab is reported to have recruited a significant number of supporters and fighters among minority groups and the Rahanweyn.[104]

In both Badbaado and Rajo camps IDPs described being verbally abused by the heads of security and their militia while being beaten. A traditional elder at Badbaado camp told Human Rights Watch:

The Dharkenley district commissioner came to us, bringing some 40 men in police uniform. He told us that they are the police guaranteeing our safety, and that Captain Jimale [camp commander placed in the camp by the Dharkenley district commissioner] will be the commander and he will be the chief of the camp. We welcomed that because we thought that they will secure us and will help us.

But things changed soon. The policemen started to beat the people aimlessly. When some food aid came and the people start to gather around the delivery cars, they started beating the women and children, and they started insulting us. They said to us, “You are from Bay and Bakool regions. You are al-Shabaab’s people. You are not displaced by drought, you are cursed people.[105]

Displaced elders also said that camp commanders and government-affiliated militia justify actions aimed at preventing the displaced from mobilizing or complaining about abuses on the basis of their clan identity. One of the Rahanweyn elders in Badbaado said:

When we saw what is going on, we discussed and formed a committee among the displaced people in the camp. We recognized that the police Captain [Jimale] and his supporters in the camp are discriminating against us as a clan, because we [all the displaced in the camp] are from Rahanweyn clan, we are from Middle Shabelle, Bay, and Bakool regions, and his locals are from Da’oud sub-clan of Abgal.

So Captain Jimale was very angry. He arrested us, he kept us in a tent all the night, our hands were tied back, and he denied us any food. He told us that we can’t organize anyone in the camp, we can’t talk to the media, and we can’t enter his office in the camp unless he ordered us to enter.[106]

Similarly, a man was beaten and insulted by the Wadajir district commissioner’s militia that controls Rajo camp. He told Human Rights Watch:

I tried to go to the camp commander, Mohamud, and tell him about the abuse on my son and wife, but he ignored me. And when I tried to inform him about what happened his soldiers tried to beat me. They said to me, “You shit Elay, leave here.”[107]

A displaced man in Rajo camp described the sense of helplessness men feel in the face of abuse by armed camp security:

They [the district commissioner’s militia] beat the women when they collect the water, when we are in line for the food distribution, when the women go for collection of firewood, and whenever they see them passing in the camp. They say, “Here is not your region, why are you here?” Sometimes, we follow the women when they go collecting firewood. We can stop the neighbors from beating them, but when the camp security or administrators beat them we can’t stop because they have guns and they arrest us when we intervene.[108]

A government soldier spoke openly to Human Rights Watch about the discrimination that IDPs face at the hands of gatekeepers and militia and also pointed to the lack of government protection for Rahanweyn IDPs:

The IDPs who fled from Bay and Bakool regions speak a different dialect. Sometimes they are despised, sometimes they are denigrated by the camp administrators, who insult them all the time. They have no representation at all. Their most senior person in the government is the [former] speaker of parliament and … he never visited them. So who cares for them if they have no representation of their government people?[109]

Several IDPs and a member of the governmental Disaster Management Agency described how in Badbaado in late 2011 Captain Jimale would offer tents left vacant by IDPs who had fled the camp because of insecurity, for which his militias were in part responsible, to members of his own clan.[110] Nadif M., a 66-year-old man from the Bakool region, thought this was a deliberate strategy: “The attacks seem like a tactic of displacement, because when we feel threats and some of the people run because of fear, some people from the captain’s clan replace the people who left.”[111]

Evictions

In addition to serious physical abuses, in 2012 displaced families, especially those living in government or private buildings, have increasingly been forcibly evicted from their homes. The reason appears to be growing pressure on land and property in Mogadishu. According to the United Nations around 13 percent of all displacement in Mogadishu is the result of evictions ordered by the government and by private landlords.[112] The report states that, “Earlier in 2012, long-term internally displaced people were forcibly evicted from public buildings in Mogadishu, thus creating a homeless population in the capital.”[113] The evictions often take place with little or no warning, through threats, and with no alternative viable living arrangements provided for the displaced.

The UN Guiding Principles provides that the internally displaced have the right to basic shelter and housing,[114] and the right to liberty of movement and freedom to choose their residence.[115] The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), to which Somalia is a party, guarantees the right not to be subjected to arbitrary or unlawful interference with one's privacy and home.[116]

The authorities’ failure to provide residents adequate notification before evicting them is inconsistent with recommendations made by the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, which calls on governments to ensure various procedural safeguards in cases of forced evictions.[117]

In May 2012, TFG forces moved into al-Adala camp with a “technical,” a vehicle mounted with anti-aircraft guns, and ordered IDPs to vacate. They were not given any prior warning, according to an international aid worker.[118]

In October 2012 several families living at the Banadir High School building and compound in Hodan district were evicted by the district authorities and the local police. The majority had lived in the area for years. The IDPs were given a day to vacate the area. At least four displaced men who went to the district commissioner’s offices to complain were arrested by the police and briefly detained at a local police station.[119]

IDPs from Banadir High School who had been forcibly evicted told Human Rights Watch about not having been given new shelters.[120] One said:

My home was destroyed by the commissioner of Hodan district. He destroyed my house with his bulldozer. Many troops including his bodyguards were taking part. I went to the office of the commissioner several times and requested that my belongings should be taken to a suitable place for me. After they destroyed my home they said to me, “We will give you a tent as shelter,” but I have received nothing from them.[121]

Diversion of Food Aid and Control over Resources

In addition to physical abuses, internally displaced people in Mogadishu face ongoing violations to their rights to food and shelter as a result of diversion of humanitarian assistance at the camp level. Food aid is stolen by a range of actors at the camp level, including government forces, government-allied militia, and private individuals. Shelter is also used to control IDPs movement. Tents are controlled by gatekeepers with the help of their militias.

As noted above, the government has the primary responsibility to provide assistance and protection to the displaced and to seek and facilitate access for international humanitarian organizations where the government is unable to provide adequate resources.[122] The government needs also to protect other fundamental rights, such as the right to housing[123] and freedom of movement.[124]

Looting, Diversion, and Misappropriation of Food Aid

At the camp level, gatekeepers and their militias, government allied-militia, and local authorities use different means to steal assistance that arrives at the camp. These include looting, setting up “ghost” camps, manipulating lists of IDPs who are due to receive assistance, determining access to ration cards, and wrongfully distributing or selling ration cards. Humanitarian agencies told Human Rights Watch that gatekeepers have circumvented monitoring mechanisms of humanitarian agencies and restricted access of journalists.[125] Gatekeepers also demand payments from IDPs as a form of “rent.” These payments are to gatekeepers and sometimes also landowners in exchange for supposed protection or access to land. As one international NGO staff member described it, “There is nowhere that an IDP can live for free.”[126] While payment of rent is not itself an abuse, the displaced who cannot afford to pay for shelter have a right to be accorded assistance by the authorities. If the authorities are unable to provide such assistance, they should seek assistance from humanitarian agencies and international donors.[127]

Many of the IDPs interviewed by Human Rights Watch in 2012 described severe food shortages that often were a result of diversion and misappropriation of food aid by gatekeepers and their militia. As a 30-year-old woman in Kheyr-Qabe camp at Digfeer hospital said, “There is nothing worse than the situation we are in. Now all we want is to get a car and return to our villages, because if I can die here because of food aid diversion, I can also die in my village, because death is death.”[128]

An IDP in one of the Saredo camps in Tarbuunka described the level of diversion and the efforts by gatekeepers to make a profit out of assistance: “Water tanks bring water, and we get it. We have no water shortage, but we have nothing else. They don’t steal the water, because they can’t sell it. If the water would cost money they would steal it.”[129]

Human Rights Watch also documented several incidents in the initial phase of the famine when TFG forces and militias, including government affiliated militias, used deadly force to loot dry food aid.

On August 5, 2011, seven people, including two displaced women, were killed when a militia linked to Yusuf Kaballe, the Dharkenley deputy district commissioner, started looting food aid brought to Badbaado camp by the WFP, prompting a clash with militia guarding the camp.[130] The deputy district commissioner and his militia reportedly refused to allow WFP to distribute the food unless 5 of the 13 trucks were handed over to him.[131]

Human Rights Watch witnessed another incident of looting of rice, flour, and oil supplies. On September 27, 2011, Zamzam Foundation, a Somali humanitarian organization, distributed food at Sayidka camp in Wardhigley district.[132] Once the displaced people had received their rations, pro-government militia in charge of security at the presidential palace, who were overseeing the distribution, started firing in the air, creating chaos. Outside the camp, men with donkey carts were waiting, and started looting the rations of the more vulnerable people, especially unaccompanied women, once the chaos broke out. Other women who were not IDPs but had also received rations were accompanied by armed men and were not targeted. The looted aid was loaded onto the donkey carts that then headed off towards Hamerweyne market. This incident took place only one kilometer from the presidential palace, in an area packed with AMISOM and TFG forces, but no one intervened.

Sayidka (or Beerta Darwiishta) camp is the biggest IDP camp in Mogadishu’s Wardhigley district. A week after this photo was taken in September 2011, government-affiliated militias fired into the air and forcibly looted food aid from the camp.  Despite the camp’s close proximity to the presidential palace, government forces did not intervene. © 2011 Private

While more frequent in the initial phases of the 2011 influx, reports of looting continue.

On October 22, 2012, militia associated with the deputy district commissioner of Dharkenley, along with residents living near Badbaado camp, reportedly looted food destined for dozens of households from Badbaado following a distribution by the Turkish Red Crescent.[133]

Controlling the distribution of ration cards has been a common method used to control and misappropriate assistance at the camp level. Displaced people in numerous camps, including the Tarbuunka camps of Hodan district and Rajo camp in Wardigley, described the misappropriation of ration cards to Human Rights Watch.

There are many different ways that gatekeepers acquire ration cards. Gatekeepers often insist on being in charge of allocating ration cards, and according to the 2012 UN Monitoring Group report, new NGOs and donors, such as Turkey and the Organization of Islamic Cooperation countries, are particularly likely to ask or allow gatekeepers to distribute ration cards.[134] One aid agency said that they distributed a certain number of ration cards to gatekeepers in order to prevent them from exploiting or threatening IDPs.[135] Other gatekeepers insist on getting a share of ration cards from the IDP committees, as one IDP from Siliga described: “We have a leader [from the refugee community] who distributes food. The district commissioner decides where the food distribution points are. Our leader will inform us but then the gatekeeper comes with us. Our leader takes cards to her but if he gives her two she asks for more.”[136]

There can be serious consequences when aid workers refuse to accommodate the demands. A Somali NGO told Human Rights Watch that a staff member was temporarily arrested in Badbaado and taken to the local police station in August 2011 after having refused to give ration cards to the deputy district commissioner’s militia.[137]

A former member of the Disaster Management Committee described the corruption around the distribution of ration cards and placed much of the blame on poor monitoring and lack of accountability: “Everyone comes and distributes some food and people are still hungry, because they give some small cards to some IDPs and they give the rest of the cards to their friends and relatives. The reason is that there is no mechanism to monitor and [deliver] justice and there are no people responsible for it.”[138]

It is not only the gatekeepers who benefit, but also their militia, or the locally based militia, as well as government soldiers. Sometimes ration cards are given in exchange for providing security but they are also provided as a preventive measure to stop armed groups from looting assistance and committing other abuses. A gatekeeper from the Tarbuunka area told Human Rights Watch:

The security for distribution is bad. If you don’t pay something then they come at nighttime and commit rape. I had a problem with the security. One week ago, they came in the night, pointed guns at us, stole mobile phones... some in TFG uniform, others in normal clothes, you don’t know where they are from.

I have a relationship with two of them—militia. I pay them, and they manage the security. You give him something and ask him to watch his colleagues. In terms of food distribution we give them three cards. Sometimes we collect money when the situation is really bad. I give them around 20 dollars or I buy them khat [a mild stimulant]. There is no fence in our camp, so they can come in and rape any time. It happens around two or three times a week.[139]

According to an IDP elder, even in Badbaado in late 2012, where security was provided by the police, militia got their share of the food assistance and cards during distributions:

The other militias are around—the DC’s [district commissioner] militia, ASWJ [Ahlu Sunna Wal Jama’a]. But they don’t cause too many problems. They are clan militias and there is something for them [food] when distributions happen, to secure the other food. They must be given their share. Each militia man has a card, or is given a card. They are a small number, about 40 or 50. They only come once food is brought there.

A government soldier described to Human Rights Watch how the camp administrators would also give them cards:

If we try to stop food diversion from the camp administrators or any other person involved in it, we will be the losers, because they are giving us the cards just to bribe us.

I am a soldier, I can’t take responsibility. The Somalis say, the hungry man is not responsible for anything, so all the problem is the hunger that affects everyone.

I am sure the people who fled from the drought areas are very weak and deserve to get the food aid. I agree with that, but, suppose if I stop taking the food aid, which is like 100 kilograms, and all the people are not stopping? I will be the loser. But if all people stealing the food start to stop it in favor of the suffering people in the camps, I will be the first to stop.[140]

Numerous displaced people and aid workers described how gatekeepers as well as their militias would distribute cards to relatives or other individuals who were not part of the IDP camp population. An IDP from Sayidka camp said, “The soldiers want to get the cards. They want to distribute a very small amount and they call their people with mobile telephones and collect the food for them, and they take the food out for them.”[141] Displaced people and local NGOs highlighted the link between food distribution and the presence of militia, with the head of a local NGO calling Badbaado in its early days “a militia market.”[142]

Aid workers also reportedly come under pressure from government officials and district authorities to hand over ration cards to their relatives. A food distributor working for a Turkish NGO explained: “Some government officials call us. They recommend some of their relatives. They request us to give cards to them, [which] we must accept. Each of the officials wants to ask you to give five to seven cards to the people they recommend, so we accept it.”[143] And yet, he also admitted being part of the very same system: “I am not different from those taking the meat from us, we have relatives and friends and neighbors. They know that we are distributing meat, and they visit us in our houses at night and we give them cards.”[144]

Even obtaining a ration card is not always a guarantee that the displaced people can access assistance because the food distributed to them through ration cards is often taken away. In several camps in the Tarbuunka area, including Bisharo, Ufarow, Madlamo, and Kheyr-Qabe camps run by a gatekeeper that IDPs refer to as Fadumo, displaced women are made to line up to receive food aid from a Middle Eastern NGO and for the cameras. But when the agency representatives and the cameras left, the sacks would be taken by the camp militia. The women would be given 100,000 Somali shillings (US$4) by the gatekeeper, significantly less than what the assistance was worth. One displaced woman told Human Rights Watch:

When the pictures and filming are finished the white people leave. And when the white people leave we also leave. We don’t take anything of the food, we take the 100,000 shillings. We can’t reject lining up, because if you reject you miss the 100,000 Somali shillings with which you can cook one night for the children. So we are hungry and we can’t reject anything. Now we stopped lining up, because we are hopeless, we thought that the gatekeepers would respect us if they divert the food aid one or two times, but all the time it is the same.[145]

Several IDPs in these camps told similar stories. One woman living in Ufurow camp described the sense of helplessness that her husband feels in the face of the militia: “I saw my husband crying in the tent many times. He sees the food of his family taken by militiamen. He can’t comment, he is a man, he can do nothing, so he cries. We all cry.”[146] Several IDPs resorted to begging as a result of the lack of food. A 23-year-old mother of three children living in Saredo camp in Tarbuunka said:

We fled because of hunger. We live in a camp, we are still hungry. The food aid comes, but we don’t get it, we are very sad that we are not getting food. Our eyes see the food, but they don’t give it to us. Sometimes they give us one kilogram for each family. We cook it one day, the second day we go begging. We cook whatever we get from the begging, we give it to the children.[147]

Several IDPs described how the gatekeepers would place the food assistance directly in stores and that they would not see the food again. One woman told Human Rights Watch:

The food aid comes, we see it while it is loaded on the trucks, but they store it in their stores and sell it to the market. They sell it in their shops also. We see it all the time but we don’t get it. There are some people getting food, the close relatives or clan members of Gardhere [gatekeeper of a series of camps in Tarbuunka] and his militia. The rest of the food goes back to the market.[148]

Some gatekeepers set up shops near the camps where they sell the food. The gatekeepers running a series of camps in Tarbuunka have, according to numerous IDPs, set up several shops in the area.[149] One IDP in al-Huda camp complained about having to buy back food from the gatekeeper:

When we beg the people and get some money he [the gatekeeper] requests us to buy the sugar and food from his shop. We buy what our small money can buy from him, and the food we are buying through the money begged is our own food.[150]

Abuses Arising through Control over Shelter

Camp managers, gatekeepers, and their militias use their distribution and control of shelter to exploit IDPs. In certain camps, food and other assistance are distributed based on the number of tents; in others assistance is given based on the number of reported families in a given settlement. There is therefore an incentive for gatekeepers to inflate the numbers of IDPs and ensure that the camp appears to be full of tents. In their attempt to control tents—and the accompanying assistance—gatekeepers and their militia have physically mistreated IDPs and restricted their freedom of movement.

Tents delivered to IDPs in certain camps in Tarbuunka area were seen as the property of gatekeepers and their usage was stringently monitored by gatekeepers’ militia.[151] According to numerous IDPs in these camps, the militia monitors the tents on a daily basis to make sure that the tents are clean because they are the property of the gatekeeper. The militias beat those who complain.[152] The militia linked to the gatekeeper also uses force and threats to prevent IDPs from removing the tents when they try to leave the camps.[153]

Displaced women stand next to a board advertising an IDP camp on Dabka Road in Hodan district, Mogadishu. Hosting the displaced is a lucrative business in Mogadishu—similar advertisements are scattered throughout the capital. © 2011 Private

In several camps run by Saredo, a gatekeeper in Tarbuunka, in Hodan district,[154] the militias that are linked to her routinely inspect IDP tents and beat IDPs whose tents they consider to be dirty. Fatima W., a 27-year-old woman said:

They [asked us to] destroy our bush houses. They gave us tents, but they attack us every day and tell us that the tents are not ours. They tell us that we use them temporarily. But the white people who donated the tents told us that the tents belonged to us. It is the camp owners who send the militia and the militia tell us to keep the tents clean for them.[155]

Another IDP described the intrusion into their daily life as a violation of their right to privacy:

How would you feel if someone comes every morning and tells you that your bed belongs to him, and he checks if you made it dirty last night, do you feel comfortable? That is why we are not happy with the issue of the tents. We have the right to live in the tents freely, but that right died in the hands of Saredo militia.[156]

Several displaced people explained that without their tents they could not leave the camp or return home. Mariam K., a 40-year-old woman in Bisharo camp, said:

If we give her [Saredo] the tents we have no other alternatives. If we try to move from the camp she takes the tents from us. We don’t have a plastic sheet, and we don’t have other shelter. We don’t have a place to sleep, so until we get rescued we must stay there as hostages. Otherwise we must give up the tents and sleep outside.

If the gatekeeper allows me to have the tents then I can return [home] even without the food of the aid workers. I can return to my original place, use my tent as shelter.… But now we are hopeless and helpless.[157]

According to UN staff, in late 2012 IDPs who expressed an interest in returning to their places of origin received threats from gatekeepers especially in camps around the Milk Factory area in Hodan district.[158] As a result, local UN staff were unwilling to visit certain camps to assess whether IDPs were interested in returning to their village of origin out of concern that they would face reprisals from the gatekeepers.[159]

Restrictions by gatekeepers are evidently not the only factor impeding the freedom of movement of the displaced. Several IDPs living in dire conditions in the camps said they could not move to other camps or settlements, either because they could not afford to or because they feared that the situation in alternate locations might be even worse.

Arbitrary Arrests and Reprisals against IDPs for Complaints

Camp managers, gatekeepers, and militias routinely thwart efforts by displaced people to raise concerns about abuses at the camp level with government authorities, the media, and other external observers. When displaced people have tried to protest they have often faced reprisals. The Kampala Convention explicitly provides that states have an obligation to protect displaced people from persecution or punishment when they peacefully request protection or assistance.[160]

In certain camps, notably in Badbaado in the latter half of 2011, IDPs who spoke out against abuses such as sexual violence or diversion of food aid were sometimes arrested by militia or other security forces. The militia of the district commissioner, Moallin Abdullahi Ali Nur, temporarily detained some protesters in makeshift jails. Gatekeepers also limited the access of external observers and monitors to IDPs and to the camps by insisting that visitors have to pass through them. As one UN international staff member pointed out: “The UN doesn’t talk to IDPs without gatekeepers being nearby.”[161]

In Badbaado the former camp commander Captain Jimale regularly ignored protests and suppressed efforts by IDPs to mobilize. On September 2, 2011, two camp leaders who helped set up a committee were detained for 24 hours in a tent on Jimale’s orders and he subsequently threatened them with further arrests if they did not stop protesting.

Such restrictions on efforts by displaced people to mobilize and protest are not limited to Badbaado. A displaced person in Rajo camp told Human Rights Watch that, “In the Rajo camp of Wadajir district, the camp commander denied a request by IDPs to set up a committee.”[162] According to a 34-year-old displaced man, the commander said: “You are only IDPs, why do you want to have a committee?’ He called us ‘newcomers’ and ‘foolish Elays’.”[163]

Displaced people seeking to publicly demonstrate have also been arbitrarily arrested by government security forces. One displaced man who took part in a demonstration outside of the mayor of Mogadishu’s office to protest the treatment IDPs faced in Badbaado camp in July 2011 reported being arrested by the Criminal Investigation Department. He told Human Rights Watch:

The other man and I were in jail for four days. [A Mogadishu City Administration official] took us to the Criminal Investigation Department jails and reported that we are violators and we organized violence in Badbaado IDP camp…. Our committee elders started lobbying for our release. They met with some government members from Rahanweyn clan and they explained our situation, the lawmakers started to discuss with the CID commander and [the official]. The fifth day we were released.[164]

Large crowds of IDPs demonstrate in central Mogadishu against the diversion of food assistance. IDPs have held several demonstrations since the influx into Mogadishu in mid-2011. The government has not been responsive to their complaints, and in some instances has detained protesters. © 2011 Private

Restrictions were also placed on external actors seeking direct access to the IDPs. Nongovernmental organizations described having to get the permission of gatekeepers in order to access the IDP camps. One UN staff member described with frustration how “everywhere you go, the gatekeeper will be there. We have tried to use distraction methods by splitting into groups so that the gatekeeper cannot follow us.”[165]

Several organizations monitoring abuses against IDPs in camps explained that they identified monitors within the IDP population to minimize interference from the gatekeepers and militias running the camps.[166] In early September 2011, the district commissioner’s militia in Badbaado stopped journalists, including a BBC journalist, from interviewing IDPs inside the camps.[167]