Summary
Somalia remains mired in a brutal conflict between the Transitional Federal Government (TFG), which holds only a sliver of the capital, Mogadishu, and armed opposition groups that control most of the country. Over the past year hostilities have raged in strategically important areas, including Mogadishu, while much of the rest of Somalia has enjoyed relative peace.
Both the inhabitants of the shattered capital and those living in more peaceful areas have endured devastating patterns of abuse. In much of the south, which is largely controlled by the armed Islamist group al-Shabaab, the population is subject to targeted killings and assaults, repressive forms of social control, and brutal punishments under its draconian interpretation of Sharia (Islamic law). Meanwhile, in Mogadishu, mortars fired by al-Shabaab and African Union troops deployed to protect the internationally-backed TFG continue to kill civilians and ravage the city. All sides have violated the laws of war by conducting indiscriminate attacks and other abuses.
Al-Shabaab is a radical offshoot of the Islamic Courts Union, the militia-backed coalition that held sway in Mogadishu for part of 2006 before being routed by Ethiopia’s military intervention in Somalia. Some of al-Shabaab’s leaders have ties to al-Qaeda, and the United States, the European Union, and many regional governments have viewed its rise with alarm. Today it is the most powerful single armed faction in Somalia, controlling more territory than any other group.
In many areas, al-Shabaab rule has brought relative peace and order that contrasts dramatically with the chaos in Mogadishu. Residents from some of these areas told Human Rights Watch that they credit al-Shabaab with ending a constant menace of extortion, robbery, and murder from bandits and freelance militias. But even where this holds true, security has come at a steep price—especially for women.
The international media has focused on al-Shabaab’s suicide attacks, public beheadings, stoning of women accused of adultery, and amputations of convicted thieves. Less attention has been given to the grinding repression that characterizes daily life in communities controlled by al-Shabaab, where many local administrations have sought to implement harsh and intolerant measures in the name of Sharia.
These measures control minute details of personal lives, from the way the way people dress and work to interactions between men and women. The punishments for even minor offenses are often summary, arbitrary, and cruel. A climate of fear prevents most people from speaking out against abuses of power. As one resident of the southern town of El Wak put it, “We just stay quiet. If they tell us to follow a certain path, we follow it.”
Freedoms women took for granted in traditional Somali culture have been dramatically rolled back. In many areas, women have been barred from engaging in any activity that leads them to mix with men—even small-scale commercial enterprises that many of them depend on for a living. Al-Shabaab authorities have arrested, threatened, or whipped countless women for trying to support their families by selling cups of tea. “I used to be able to walk and work freely,” one woman said. But when al-Shabaab took control of her community, “I felt like I was in a jail.”
In many areas, al-Shabaab officials require women to wear a particularly heavy type of abaya, a traditional form of Islamic dress that covers everything but the face, hands, and feet. Women who fail to do so are often arrested, publicly flogged, or both. Human Rights Watch interviewed one woman who was publicly whipped and then locked in a shipping container for racing out of her home without her abaya in pursuit of a toddler who had wandered into the street. Many women, especially in impoverished rural areas, simply cannot afford these relatively expensive garments and have to share one among several relatives or families—meaning only one can leave the house at a time.
It is not only women who suffer from al-Shabaab’s brutal attempts to enforce their edicts. And the rules often seem to depend partly on the whims of the militiamen who enforce them. Many young men described how al-Shabaab militiamen threatened to arrest them for engaging in “idle” activity like playing soccer. One man told Human Rights Watch how an al-Shabaab militiaman forced him to his knees in the street and shaved his head with a broken piece of glass after deciding that his hair was too long. Others spoke of being jailed or flogged for failing to pray at proscribed times or of patrols smashing cell phones that contained western music.
In Mogadishu, civilians are trapped in a very different scenario: a bloody and intractable conflict pitting the TFG, protected by the 5,300-strong African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM), against an armed opposition spearheaded by al-Shabaab. Civilians in Mogadishu continue to bear the brunt of the fighting, which has long been characterized by indiscriminate attacks by all sides. Opposition fighters have unlawfully deployed in densely populated civilian neighborhoods and at times used civilians as “shields” to fire mortars at TFG and AMISOM positions—attacks conducted so indiscriminately that they frequently destroy civilian homes but rarely strike military targets. Often AMISOM or TFG forces respond in kind, launching indiscriminate mortar strikes on the neighborhoods from which opposition fighters had fired and then fled—leaving only civilians to face the devastation that ensues.
Human Rights Watch interviewed people who saw their entire families blown to pieces by mortar shells lobbed indiscriminately at their homes. One 14-year-old boy lost his parents and four brothers to one of these attacks. “I saw pieces of their hands and legs near the part of the house that we used for resting,” he said. “I am in such shock I barely know who I am.”
In addition, al-Shabaab and other opposition forces often threaten to kill people they suspect of harboring sympathies for their opponents or who resist recruitment. These are not empty threats—opposition groups have murdered civilians regularly and with complete impunity. One young man told Human Rights Watch that after his 15-year-old brother deserted from al-Shabaab, a group of its gunmen shot dead his uncle for refusing to reveal the boy’s whereabouts.
The TFG and AMISOM forces are deployed only in Mogadishu, but sporadic fighting between other groups in areas outside the capital has also exacted a heavy toll on civilians. For example, clashes between rival armed groups Hizbul Islam and Ahlu Sunna Waljamaca around the central towns of Dhusamareb and Beletweyne displaced more than 25,000 people at the beginning of 2010. All told, some 63,000 people were driven from their homes across southern and central Somalia during the first three weeks of the year.
International actors continue to play a direct—and often counter-productive—role in Somalia. Almost all key foreign actors including the African Union, United States, and European Union have adopted a policy of strong backing for the TFG that includes training and arming its fighters. Neighboring Kenya has under false pretenses recruited Somali youths from refugee camps to be fighters—contravening humanitarian principles and returning them to the very chaos they fled. Eritrea, in an effort to undermine the regional interests of its political foe Ethiopia, has supported al-Shabaab and other Somali opposition groups.
Governments supporting the TFG contend that it represents a real chance at peace and good governance for Somalia, while al-Shabaab is the potential leading edge of international terrorism in the region. Many analysts find this policy framework simplistic. But whatever its analytic merits, the policy has failed to achieve its goals. The TFG remains a weak faction confined to a small part of the capital that is under relentless military assault; it would almost certainly collapse without AMISOM’s backing. Somalia’s people continue to suffer pervasive human rights abuses and indiscriminate attacks and al-Shabaab has grown more powerful and radicalized despite increasing international pressure.
Meanwhile, one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises grows more catastrophic by the day. About 1.5 million Somalis are displaced from their homes and half the population is in urgent need of humanitarian aid. More than half-a-million people have sought shelter in other countries as refugees. And as of this writing the UN World Food Program (WFP) had to suspend food aid to a huge swath of southern Somalia, citing threats, attacks, and unreasonable demands by al-Shabaab and other armed groups. A recent UN report found that an enormous proportion of the food aid WFP delivers to Somalia is diverted by powerful local contractors and armed groups.
There is no easy solution to the complex and deeply entrenched crisis that is tearing Somalia apart. But the UN, other intergovernmental bodies, and influential governments should first reverse the policies that are contributing to rampant abuses. The US government should stop sending mortars and mortar shells to the TFG in Mogadishu, as it had in 2009, so long as the weapons are used without regard to the laws of war, destroying homes and shattering families. UN institutions and key regional and western powers including the African Union should demand that AMISOM and TFG forces also abide by the laws of war instead of turning a blind eye to their allies’ abuses on the ground.
Al-Shabaab and other armed opposition groups should stop committing abuses such as firing mortars indiscriminately and from densely populated areas, using civilians as human shields, and recruiting child soldiers. Al-Shabaab should also halt floggings, amputations, decapitations, and other practices that contravene international human rights standards.
