We were told that private property was taken from homes by the military in Hargeisa. [142] Some were severely tortured and had become permanently paralyzed as a result of the torture. Somaliland parents tell their children stories about the cruelties. Ethnic Cleansing - Definition, Meaning & Examples - History [149] A woman who had visited the town the following month, and who was interviewed by Africa Watch in London, described the incident:[150], I was told that the SNM had attacked the town at the end of March and killed a lot of soldiers; the militias had fled; two days later, the militias returned and killed a lot of Isaak civilians. Ratko Mladic, the 'Butcher of Bosnia' - BBC News The majority were due to Al-Shabab targeted and . The fate of those who can no longer be traced remains largely unknown. The scale of destruction was unprecedented, up to 90 percent of the city (then the second largest city in Somalia) was destroyed,[132][133][134] (United States embassy estimated 70 percent of the city was damaged or destroyed). This page was last edited on 11 April 2023, at 15:09. [142] Most of them were men of fighting age that "the army feared would join the SNM,"[141] a few women were also among the victims. [69] This was a major cause of the eventual fall of the Barre regime in 1991. Arrests usually happened at night and were carried out by the Hangash forces. In the countryside, the persecution of Isaaq included the creation of a mechanised section of the Somali Armed Forces dubbed as Dabar Goynta Isaaqa (The Isaaq Exterminators) consisting entirely of non-Isaaqs (mainly Ogaden);[31][32] this unit conducted a "systematic pattern of attacks against unarmed, civilian villages, watering points and grazing areas of northern Somalia [Somaliland], killing many of their residents and forcing survivors to flee for safety to remote areas". [180] At Tur Debe, government forces destroyed wells by using mines as demolition explosives. somali child massacre bosnian They were accused of helping the SNM. Amnesty International confirmed the large-scale targeting and killing of civilian population by Somali government troops. They were all accused of assisting the farmer's wife to shelter the SNM fighter. Killing, rape and looting became common."[62]. On 11 July 1995, Bosnian Serb units captured the town of Srebrenica in Bosnia-Herzegovina. "SOMALIA FIGHTS CHARGES OF HUMAN RIGHTS ABUSES", "BBC NEWS | Africa | Analysis: Somalia's powerbrokers", "Morgan's Death Letter-The Final Solution to Somalia's Isaq Problem", "How Mass Atrocities End: An Evidence-Based Counter-Narrative", "Is the conflict against the SNM in northern Somalia condemned by the international community? "[145], Human Rights Watch's Africa Watch also reported the case of 11 Isaaq men, some of whom were nomads, being arrested by the government on the outskirts of Berbera. [141] The killing of detainees started when orders came from Mogadishu to cease the transfer of detainees. [142] Eight of the passengers detained were killed, the remaining 21 were imprisoned in Berbera and later released. [184] According to Rebecca Richards, the violence in the north and northwest was disproportionate but affected many communities, particularly Isaaq. In addition to arresting several others, six Isaaq men were executed on the spot, including two elderly brothers, their two sons and the son-in-law of one of the elderly man who was visiting from abroad. The report noted that the agency's staff have reported "many violations of human rights for which they believe the Somali Government must take the main responsibility". [57] The Barre regime exploited the presence of such a large number of refugees as means of seeking foreign aid,[58] as well as a vehicle to displacing those deemed hostile to the state, notably the Isaaqs, Human Rights Watch noted that: "Northerners [Isaaqs] were dismissed from and not allowed to work in government offices dealing with refugee affairs, so that they would not discover the truth about the government's policies. According to some observers such as the International Crisis Group, while the violence under Barre affected many communities in Somalia, "no other Somali community faced such sustained and intense state-sponsored violence" as the Isaaq. The Somalia Handbook for U.S. armed forces notes that "the landmine problem in Somalia can be described as a general problem in the southern sectors of Somalia and a very serious problem in the northern sectors. [72] The testimony of Aryeh Neier (co-founder of HRW) explains the context in which the SNM was formed: Since 1981, with the formation of the SNM, northern Somalia has seen the worst atrocities. "[87][self-published source]. [142], Atrocities committed by government forces in Berbera are especially notable because no fighting between government forces and SNM had taken place there,[143] and as such the government had no pretext to commit atrocities against Isaaq civilians in Berbera (and other Isaaq settlements not attacked by SNM). The massacre, which was the worst episode of mass murder within Europe since . [Non-Isaaq territory]. Following the SNM attacks on the major towns of Hargeisa and Burao, government forces bombed the towns causing over 400,000 people to flee the atrocities across the border into Ethiopia, where they are now located in refugee camps, living in appalling conditions, with inadequate water, food, shelter and medical facilities. [35] Human Rights Watch states that this unit, along with other branches of the military, were responsible for terrorising Isaaq nomads in the countryside. [155], On government orders, all Isaaq senior officials were proscribed from leaving the country for fear they would joining the SNM. [162], Atrocities committed by the Barre's forces against Isaaqs included the strafing (i.e. war crimes, crimes against humanity or genocide) had been perpetrated during the country's civil war". [90] On every encounter between the SNM and government forces, "the army would conduct a sweep of the area where the incident occurred. President George H.W. In February 1992, Physicians for Human Rights sent a medical team to the region to examine the scale of the problem of land-mines left over from the 19881991 conflict, they have described the situation as follows: They [mines] are most prevalent in the countryside surrounding two of Somaliland's principal cities, Hargeisa and Burao, and in the pastoral and agricultural lands west of Burao. The UN team reported that, with the Somali Army's encouragement, the Ogadeni refugees carried out extensive looting in several northern towns. [154] There were also widespread arrests of Isaaq men in the area, they were usually detained at a nearby military compound. The campaign had completely destroyed Hargeisa, causing its population of 500,000 to flee across the border and the city was "reduced to a ghost town with 14,000 buildings destroyed and a further 12,000 heavily damaged".