Sunday, July 23, 2006
Unknown gunmen have killed 682 civilians, including a foreign journalist, in executions over the past year in Somalia, a local human rights group said in a report today.
Included in the reports of 682 killings was the death of Swedish journalist Martin Adler as he filmed a protest in Mogadishu in June. An unidentified gunman shot him in the back.
The report covers human rights violations between July 22, 2005, and July 20, 2006.
It said combatants killed 400 civilians and injured 1,500 during on-and-off fighting between Islamic militiamen and secular warlords for the control of Mogadishu that continued from February to July.
Somalia has not had an effective central government for 15 years since warlords overthrew dictator Mohamed Siad Barre in 1991 and then turned on each other.
The Islamic militiamen, loyal to a network of Islamic courts in Mogadishu, seized control of Mogadishu in June and have since gone on to consolidate their control over most of southern Somalia.
The US has accused the Islamic militia of harbouring al-Qaida leaders responsible for deadly 1998 bombings at the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. The US backed the secular warlords in their fight against the Islamic militia in an attempt to root out terrorists.
“Islamic courts defeated the warlords controlling Mogadishu for last 15 years. At the present time, Mogadishu has one authority: the Islamic courts,” the human rights group said.
It said it “urges Islamic courts officials to restore law and order, to rebuild all necessary judicial institutions and to form a regional administration”.
About 20 women reported being raped by militiamen of various loyalties, the report said. Militiamen and others killed 17 civilians kidnapped for ransom after their demands were not met.
Source: AP, July 23, 2006
