Killings: Conflict during the year involving the government, militias, AMISOM, and al-Shabaab resulted in death, injury, and displacement of civilians. Islamic State (IS)-Somalia claimed attacks against Somali authorities and other targets in Puntland, where it is based, and around Mogadishu, but there is little local reporting on its claims. State and federal forces killed civilians and committed sexual and gender-based violence, especially in and around Lower Shabelle. Clan-based political violence involved revenge killings and attacks on civilian settlements. Clashes between clan-based forces and with al-Shabaab in Puntland and the Galmudug, Lower Shabelle, Middle Shabelle, Lower Juba, Baidoa, and Hiiraan regions, also resulted in deaths.
According to UNSOM reports, between January and October, security force attacks against al-Shabaab, other armed groups or individuals, and civilians resulted in civilian deaths, with casualties attributed to state security actors (238 total deaths and injuries) and AMISOM (eight deaths and injuries). Al-Shabaab caused significant civilian casualties, including 611 deaths and injuries, during that period. Other militias were responsible for 77 deaths and injuries.
In addition, the UN’s Country Task Force on Monitoring and Reporting recorded 185 children killed and 228 children maimed from January through June, the majority at the hands of al-Shabaab.
According to UNSOM reports, 1,117 cases of civilian casualties, including killings and injuries, were recorded between January and October.
From January through June, the United Nations verified 140 incidents of rape and sexual violence involving 145 children.
In July non-AMISOM Kenyan Defense Force troops reportedly killed two Hormuud civilian telecommunication staff and destroyed a Hormuud building and antennae in Ceel Waaq, Gedo region.
Somali intelligence sources allege that IS-Somalia members killed telecommunications company owner Abdullahi Ali Omar in Bosaso in August for not paying a tax demanded by the group.
Al-Shabaab committed politically motivated killings that targeted civilians affiliated with the government and attacks on humanitarian NGO employees, UN staff, and diplomatic missions. Al-Shabaab often used suicide attacks, mortar attacks, and improvised explosive devices (IEDs). It also killed prominent peace activists, community leaders, clan elders, electoral delegates, and their family members for their roles in peace building, and it beheaded persons accused of spying for and collaborating with Somali national forces and affiliated militias.
In March al-Shabaab claimed responsibility for an IED attack that killed a humanitarian worker.
Abductions: Al-Shabaab often abducted AMISOM troops during attacks.
UNSOM recorded 176 abductions between January and August, a majority of which were caused by al-Shabaab.
Between January and September, the UN Monitoring and Reporting Mechanism reported nearly 1,300 verified incidents of children abducted by al-Shabaab, clan militias, or unknown armed elements.
Physical Abuse, Punishment, and Torture: Government forces, allied militias, men wearing uniforms, and AMISOM troops used excessive force, including torture, and raped women and girls, including IDPs. While the army arrested some security force members accused of such abuse, impunity was the norm.
Al-Shabaab also committed sexual violence, including through forced marriages.
According to the UN Mine Action Service, IEDs killed at least 280 persons and injured 220 between January and September, with civilians constituting 43 percent of casualties. Lower Shabelle and Banadir were the primary regions affected by IEDs.
Child Soldiers: During the year there were continued reports of the SNA and allied militias, the Ahlu Sunna Wal Jama (ASWJ), and al-Shabaab using child soldiers.
UN officials documented the recruitment and use through September of 1,800 children, primarily by al-Shabaab, which accounted for 85 percent of all grave violations against children, with the SNA, clan militias, the ASWJ, and other armed elements also reportedly recruiting children.
Implementation of the government’s 2012 action plan with the United Nations to end the recruitment and use of children by the national army remained incomplete.
Between January and September, the Ministry of Defense Child Protection Unit (CPU) provided training to hundreds of SNA soldiers at the sector headquarters level focused on preventing the recruitment of children into armed conflict. In April the CPU completed various activities with UNSOM and UNICEF in all five SNA sectors, including joint community outreach, SNA awareness training, and ‘youth-in-service’ screening missions. The CPU also developed radio and print media content regarding the prevention of child recruitment and conscription in armed conflict. The CPU participated in interministerial meetings with the Ministry of Women and Human Rights Development, as well as the Ministries of Internal Security, Justice, Health and Education. These activities aimed to increase the awareness of child protection activities, commonly accepted international humanitarian standards for the treatment of children associated with armed conflict, and development of interministerial cooperation in child protection efforts. In addition, the CPU continued to received financial support from UNICEF to cochair the Children Associated with Armed Conflict Working Group.
In the absence of birth registration systems, it was often difficult to determine the age of national security force recruits.
Al-Shabaab continued to recruit and force children to participate in direct hostilities, including suicide attacks. According to the UN’s Country Task Force on Monitoring and Reporting, from January to July, 1,568 children were recruited and used by armed forces and groups in the country. Al-Shabaab accounted for at least 80 percent of that number.
Threats to parents, communities, and teachers for students’ release to al-Shabaab, and subsequent violent extremist student recruitment, increased following the April 2017 release of al-Shabaab’s primary and secondary curriculum, A UN report released during the year indicated that recruitment and use of boys and girls in conflict doubled from 2016 to 2017, with nonstate armed groups using detention, violence, and threats to force family members and teachers to hand over children. More than 2,000 children (2,087 boys and 40 girls) were recruited as child soldiers, an average of 160 children per month. There were reports of persistent targeting of children.
UNICEF and its partners provided protection services for 817 children (including 96 girls) who escaped from al-Shabaab or were released by armed forces. Reports of additional large-scale child recruitment continue. Al-Shabaab raided schools, madrassas, and mosques and harassed and coerced clan elders to recruit children. Children in al-Shabaab training camps were subjected to grueling physical training, inadequate diet, weapons training, physical punishment, and religious training. The training also included forcing children to punish and execute other children. Al-Shabaab used children in combat, including placing them in front of other fighters to serve as human shields and suicide bombers. In addition, al-Shabaab used children in support roles, such as carrying ammunition, water, and food; removing injured and dead militants; gathering intelligence; and serving as guards. The organization sometimes used children to plant roadside bombs and other explosive devices. The Somali press frequently reported accounts of al-Shabaab indoctrinating children at schools and forcibly recruiting students into its ranks.
Authorities transferred children separated from armed groups to UNICEF. In January, 36 children were rescued from al-Shabaab captivity in Middle Shabelle and transferred to a UNICEF-supported rehab center in Mogadishu.
In August the president of Puntland signed a decree pardoning children who were sentenced to many years of imprisonment for their association with al-Shabaab following their capture in 2016. The children were in a UNICEF-supported center in Garowe, awaiting transfer from Puntland to Mogadishu for additional care and eventually family reintegration.
Also see the Department of State’s annual Trafficking in Persons Report at www.state.gov/j/tip/rls/tiprpt/.
Other Conflict-related Abuse: Armed groups, particularly al-Shabaab but also government forces and militia, deliberately restricted the passage of relief supplies and other items indispensable to the survival of the civilian population as well as access by humanitarian organizations, particularly in the southern and central regions.
Humanitarian workers regularly faced checkpoints, roadblocks, extortion, carjacking, and bureaucratic obstacles.
Humanitarian organizations continued to face high levels of violence during the year. Between January and August, more than 85 violent incidents impacted humanitarian personnel, facilities, and assets, leading to the deaths of seven humanitarian workers, injury to 12, and the arrest and temporary detention of 12. Between January and August, authorities expelled two humanitarian workers from the country.
Between March and May, the International Committee for the Red Cross suffered two attacks; an IED exploded under a staffer’s vehicle, and in May its compound was attacked. In March a local World Health Organization staffer was shot and killed in Mogadishu. Al-Shabaab was believed to be behind all these attacks. Also in May al-Shabaab militants abducted three beneficiaries of a cash-for-work water-catchment project in the Bay region of South West State for failing to abide by an al-Shabaab directive banning local communities from working on the project.
Al-Shabaab seized relief supplies. In the first quarter of the year, there were seven verified incidents of denial of humanitarian access, with two incidents being attributed to al-Shabaab. Conflict in contested territories of Sool and Sanaag, between Somaliland and Puntland, escalated early in the year, particularly around Tukaraq in the Sool region, restricting humanitarian access. NGOs reported incidents of harassment by local authorities in both Somaliland and Puntland.
Al-Shabaab restricted medical care, including by impeding civilian travel to other areas to receive care, destroying medications provided by humanitarian agencies, and closing medical clinics. In July after the SNA withdrew from Caad village, al-Shabaab took over the village and burned homes, destroyed wells, confiscated livestock, and blocked delivery of medical and commercial supplies.
International aid organizations evacuated their staff or halted food distribution and other aid-related activities in al-Shabaab-controlled areas due to killings, extortion, threats, harassment, expulsions, and prohibitions by al-Shabaab.
Because of fighting between al-Shabaab, AMISOM, and the SNA; al-Shabaab’s humanitarian access restrictions and taxation on livestock; and the lack of security, many residents in al-Shabaab-controlled areas fled to refugee camps in Kenya and Ethiopia and IDP camps in other areas of the country.
Civilians reported that many residences were burned down during the fighting, prompting displacement of village residents. Some marginalized communities, particularly the Somali Bantu/Jareerweyn, reported they were victims of attacks with no recourse since regional administrations characterized incidents as clan conflicts.