Two strikes by the Somali army, with drones made in Turkey, cost the lives of at least 23 civilians, including 14 children, in March, Amnesty International says in a report released today, calling for an investigation into possible “war crimes” ».
The bombing took place on March 18 in a farm near the village of Baghdadi in the Lower Sambel district (south) and also injured 17 other civilians, including 11 children, according to the human rights group.
According to residents who spoke to the NGO, “the drone strikes followed intense ground fighting” between fighters from the Shebab (“Youth”) jihadist group and Somali forces.
The NGO gathered testimonies from 12 people, including victims, their relatives and eyewitnesses, and analyzed satellite photos and photos of fragments of the weapons used. He concluded that weapons carried by the Turkish-designed Bayraktar TB2 unmanned aerial vehicles were used.
Mohamed Ali Diri, 37, who lost his younger brother and 9-year-old nephew in the attack, told the group he ran to the farm when he heard the first blast, shortly before the second hit.
“There was chaos. Screams, blood, corpses everywhere,” he told Amnesty.
According to the NGO, the five families grieving victims because of the wounds belong to a marginalized Somali community.
“In Somalia, civilians too often pay the heaviest price in this war. These gruesome deaths cannot be ignored,” says Amnesty International’s director for eastern and southern Africa, Tigere Chaguta, in the report. “The governments of Somalia and Turkey must investigate these strikes as war crimes,” he adds.
In March, the Somali government announced that it had conducted an operation against Shebab in this area, without mentioning any civilian casualties.
“More than thirty (jihadists) were killed during an operation conducted jointly by our armed forces and our international allies,” the intelligence ministry said in a statement on March 19.
Amnesty points out that it contacted, in vain, the Somali and the Turkish government to request more information.
Ankara, which maintains close relations with Mogadishu, is considered its main economic partner and one of its most important allies at the military level.
Somalia also hosts Turkey’s largest military base/training center abroad, according to Turkish media.
Shebaab has been waging a guerrilla war since 2007 to topple Somalia’s internationally-backed federal government and impose its own extreme version of Islamic law.
An operation carried out since August 2022 in the central part of the country by the federal army with the help of armed groups formed by tribes, with air support from the US military and the African Union force in Somalia (ATMIS), has allowed territories to be recaptured, before lose momentum.
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