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Somalia: Amnesty Reports Indicts Warring Parties for Human Rights Abuses
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Garowe Online (Garowe)
6 May 2008
Posted to the web 6 May 2008
Kenneth Oduor
Nairobi
Civilian population in Somalia has been targets of human rights abuses. This is according to a report released by human rights watch group, Amnesty International in Nairobi today.
The Amnesty International report details the kinds of abuses that civilians go through in the Somali capital of Mogadishu. The report further accuses all the parties involved in the Somali conflict of being involved in human rights violations.
Because the international organizations operating in that country (Somalia) are under pressure not expose the human rights violations, it is difficult to determine the extent of these blatant violations of rights and abuses", the group said in its report.
The report indicts Ethiopian troops currently operating in the war ravaged horn of Africa country of taking part in abuses against civilians. The Ethiopian troops have been traversing the width and breath of Somalia since they helped the western backed interim government route out the Union of Islamic Courts troops two years ago.
The Amnesty international report brings to the fore the recent events where Ethiopian troops were recently accused of slitting the throats of civilians in a mosque. The Ethiopian government has since denied these allegations.
The report details chilling accounts by civilians about the extent of the kind of human rights abuses the Somalia civilian population is forced to go through as the country degenerates into further anarchy as the Transitional Federal Government (TFG) continues to lose control of the country.
According to an earlier press release appearing on the human rights group's website, Ethiopian troops allegedly killed 21 civilians in a mosque slitting the throats of some them.
The Amnesty report further points an accusing finger at the Al Shabab militia which it accuses of attacking and killing civilians and constantly threatening the press. The leader of the militia was recently killed in a US air strike a move the militia group vowed to avenge.
The report comes amid another human rights crisis in which government troops fired into a group of protesters killing at least two civilians. The protesters were venting their anger over the spiraling food prices in Somalia.
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Ethiopian troops recently detained 41 children. A spokesperson for the Transitional Government of Somalia later reported that 32 of the detained children had been released while nine were handed over to the Somalia police, Criminal Investigation Division awaiting investigations over possible terrorism links.
The Amnesty Human rights state in Somalia report was presented to the press by the group's Deputy Director of Africa Program Mitchell Kagiri. She called on the TFG to do its mandate as a government; that of protecting human rights and civil liberties of its people. The mandate of the Ethiopian troops came under sharp focus during the release of the shocking report.
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