Amisom’s help for Somalia is “rape”
Internationally funded African Union troops in Somalia have gang-raped women and girls as young as 12 and traded food aid for sex, Human Rights Watch, the US-based rights group, says.
The 22,000 AU force, called AMISOM, with soldiers drawn from six nations, have been fighting alongside government troops against the al-Qaeda-linked al-Shabab fighters since 2007.
“Some of the women who were raped said that the soldiers gave them food or money afterwards in an apparent attempt to frame the assault as transactional sex,” HRW said in a report on Monday.
The vulnerable women largely came from camps in the capital Mogadishu, having fled rural Somalia during a devastating famine in 2011.
AMISOM donors include the EU and the US.
The AU soldiers, “relying on Somali intermediaries, have used a range of tactics, including humanitarian aid, to coerce vulnerable women and girls into sexual activity”, the report read, based on testimonies of 21 women and girls.
“They have also raped or otherwise sexually assaulted women who were seeking medical assistance or water at AMISOM bases.”
The youngest interviewed was aged just 12, who said she was raped by a Ugandan soldier.
This so called Amisom forces were doing these rapé from the start of their arrival, i remember once they abducted a mother after few days of a brith of her child, they raped, mutilated, injected drugs, the same woman witnessed Amisom soldiers shooting young Somali boys in their base, these are animals collected from where rape, killing, eating human flesh is normal like Burundi and Uganda, there are allot of questions surrounding keeping these savages in the country, most of the Somali people are not optimistic of their job, there is an other question that Somalis have against those who are investing these troops and that is why are the Somali force not invested instead paying 1000 dollar each Amisom Soldier, the Somali soldier gets 100 dollar, this makes bussiness for jobless Ugandan, Burundi or other African troops deployed in Somalia, most of the Somalis also believe that Amisom is not ready to eliminate the Al-Shabab, if that happens they will lose a right reason to stay inside Somalia, the good news is that their mission will finish 2016.
However we can say the only thing that Amisom contributed to the situation of Somalia is that they are raping the children and this is something that shocks the nation.
Mohamed Ali Askar
Somalireport24
Mugadishu
