Parties fighting in Somalia are not doing enough to protect civilians with thousands injured or killed in the past two years, according to a new UN report.
Produced by the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) and the UN Assistance Mission in Somalia (UNSOM), the report shows that between 1st January, 2016, and 14th October, 2017, 2,078 civilians were killed and 2,507 were injured.
Some 60 per cent of all casualties were attributed to Islamic extremist group al-Shabaab, 13 per cent to militia, 11 per cent to state actors such as army and police, four per cent to the African Union Mission to Somalia and 12 per cent to other or unidentified parties.
Al-Shabaab was also found responsible for 86 targeted assassinations and 46 executions while a “significant number” of civilian casualties were caused by clan militia fighting over issues including land and resources disputes in areas were security forces were largely absent.
Michael Keating, the UN Secretary-General’s Special Representative for Somalia, said that “[u]ltimately, civilians are paying the price for failure to resolve Somalia’s conflicts through political means”.
“And parties to the conflict are simply not doing enough to shield civilians from the violence. This is shameful.”
The worst attack took place on 14th October in Mogadishu when 512 civilians were killed and 316 injured after twin bomb blasts attributed to al-Shabaab rocked the city.
“This barbaric act was the deadliest attack with an improved explosive device in Somalia’s history and surely one of the worst ever on the continent, if not the world,” said Mr Keating at the report’s launch. “Sadly, its impact will be felt for a long time.”
