UN rights expert: Somalia's human rights situation deteriorating

The human right situation in Somalia is deteriorating as hundreds of thousands have been forced to flee their homes while others are being subject to threats, rape and violence in the war-torn East African nation, a United Nations expert said on June 13. Ghanim Alnajjar, the Independent Expert on the situation of Human Rights in Somalia, told the Human Rights Council in Geneva that the current circumstances in the country are much worse than they were when he last briefed the 47-member body in September 2006. There have been widespread reports of indiscriminate artillery fire in the capital Mogadishu between December 2006 and April 2007, he said, and the wounded were blocked from fleeing or receiving aid and protection while the delivery of urgent relief supplies was impeded. Thousands of people are estimated to have been killed or injured during that period, and the UN has assessed that approximately 400,000 people had been forced from their homes in Mogadishu by the violence between February and May of this year, he noted. Additionally, Alnajjar said that there are 400,000 more who are internally displaced and spread out throughout Somalia. These internally displaced persons are exposed to being threatened, intimidated, robbed, assaulted and raped, and many of them are forced to take refuge in crowded camps where there is a paucity of water, food, sanitation, basic health services and shelter. Widespread harassment continued to plague human rights defenders, he said, often leading to targeted killings of such defenders, journalists, aid workers and public figures. Due to the violence, women and girls are now more vulnerable to sexual and gender-based violence, the Independent Expert said, and some children have been recruited as soldiers while school enrollment has dipped considerably.