Amnesty International denounces war crimes by US-backed forces in Somalia

While the report says all sides in the civil war have carried out crimes against civilians, it places greatest emphasis on the actions of forces armed, financed and backed militarily and politically by the United Statesthe Ethiopian military and the Transitional Federal Government. (TFG).

The Amnesty International report includes interviews with Somali refugees who describe Ethiopian and TFG troops routinely slitting the throats of civilians, carrying out gang-rapes, conducting house-to-house searches in the war-devastated capital Mogadishu and summarily killing residents, and blasting entire neighborhoods suspected of being sympathetic to Islamist insurgents.

The rights organization charges that the terror campaign by government and Ethiopian troops is a major factor in a humanitarian catastrophe that threatens millions of Somalis with starvation. In the concluding section of the report, Amnesty writes:

There is a dire human rights situation in southern and central Somalia, which has largely contributed to the current humanitarian emergency