SOMALIA: Rights group reports increase in abuses
NAIROBI, 23 July 2003 (IRIN) - Violations of human rights and international law increased in Somalia in the past year, a Somali human rights group has said. A senior official of the Mogadishu-based Isma'il Jimale Human Rights Centre (IJHRC) told IRIN that international law was breached particularly with regard to the "protection of civilians in time of war".

"It is often civilians who are killed in the factional fighting due to indiscriminate shelling of civilian areas," Abdullahi Alas Jimale, IJHRC's chief investigator, said. "The combatants don't care what happens to civilians." MORE