A new African Union peace enforcement mission, known by its acronym AUSSOM, was launched at the beginning of the year to support a fragile Somali government that has struggled against a jihadist insurgency entrenched in the countryside.
AUSSOM is the third iteration of a multinational combat force first deployed in Somalia in 2007. Yet, like its predecessors (AMISOM and ATMIS), it is weighed down by popular misgivings over the human rights record of its soldiers, and the blanket immunity they operate under – which in most cases prevents Somali citizens from winning legal redress for crimes committed.
AU forces are credited with keeping successive Somali governments in power. In gruelling house-to-house urban warfare in 2011, AMISOM managed to push al-Shabab out of the capital, Mogadishu, and took significant losses in the process. It went on to secure most major cities in south-central Somalia, before switching to a less ambitious garrison-based approach.
In 2022, it was re-badged as an 18-000-strong ATMIS mission. Although “degrading” al-Shabab remained a goal, its core rationale was one of transition – building the capacity of Somali’s security forces and local institutions to pave the way for its exit.
AUSSOM is the new acronym for essentially the same mission. However, it operates with fewer soldiers – around 12,000 – uncertain financing, a lack of clarity on troop-contributing nations, and a five-year window to complete the transition. Much of AUSSOM’s benchmarks will also be predicated on the buy-in of the Somali government and a political class over which it has only limited sway.
Public support is crucial to any counterinsurgency operation. But the AU’s near-two-decade-long intervention in Somalia has been mired in controversy. Some of its forces have been accused of abuse – including execution-style killings, rape, and indiscriminate airstrikes. Soldiers have also been involved in criminal rackets, ranging from illicit arm sales to fuel theft.
However, the violations of international humanitarian law (IHL) by AU forces have been on a far smaller scale than abuses committed by al-Shabab, clan militias, or government security forces, according to a report by the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights.
Nevertheless, the cases of extrajudicial killings, sexual violence, and excessive use of force “have fostered deep-seated resentment among much of the Somali population”, said Jethro Norman, a researcher at the Danish Institute for International Studies. “A perceived lack of accountability has only worsened this distrust – reinforcing the belief that AU troops can act with impunity.”
Several high-profile cases have shocked the Somali public over the years. They have included the reported beheading of two civilians by Ugandan AU troops last year in the town of Bulo-Marer in the southern Lower Shabelle region, and the execution in 2021 of seven farmers – including a respected community leader – in Golweyn, also in Lower Shabelle, after Ugandan troops had been ambushed on a nearby road.
Some of the victims’ bodies in Golweyn were stacked on top of each other and then blown up – violating international codes on the treatment of human remains.
The New Humanitarian has interviewed nearly a dozen people who all alleged that they, or their deceased relatives, were the victims of beatings or killings by AU peacekeepers. In all the cases investigated, none of the soldiers involved were convicted and no compensation was provided to the victims’ families.
Read the following four detailed accounts of killings and abuse:
It has been a decade since Tawane Gure was killed – and his family still grieves. He moved to Britain in 1995, working as a cab driver, but returned in 2015 to get married in his home town of Beledweyne, central Somalia.
Preparations had been made for the ceremony, but when Gure heard that a relative had passed away in Halgan, 75 kilometres away, he wanted to pay his condolences so took a minibus along with 10 other family members.
The minibus left early in the morning, but what nobody knew at the time was that al-Shabab had attacked Halgan the night before, shelling the Ethiopian AMISOM base in town.
Three kilometres from Halgan, the minibus hit a roadblock. The jumpy – or angry – soldiers apparently misidentified the vehicle, and opened fire. As some passengers exited the minibus, they began shouting “Al-Shabab!”, firing as they advanced, according to survivors. They also shot people who had their hands up – a clear war crime, even if the passengers had been al-Shabab insurgents.
Mohamed Gure got a phone call that morning in Beledweyne that something terrible had happened. He left immediately. When he arrived, bodies were still strewn on the road. “The AMISOM troops had left, but I saw the bodies of wounded and dead passengers, including my brother,” he told The New Humanitarian.
Passenger vehicles, fearing the AMISOM troops could return, wouldn’t stop. “So we had to move the dead and wounded on donkey carts,” said Gure.
Twenty-four hours after the killings, the AMISOM commander responsible for the region said he was aware of the minibus attack and would investigate.
“It has been a decade and we’ve lost hope. We haven’t heard back from them, let alone received any compensation,” said Gure. “Tawane was my older brother. He’d only been in Somalia a month when AMISOM killed him.”
In August 2023, a civilian minibus was travelling close to the town of Qoryooley, in the southwestern Lower Shabelle region, when it was hit by gunfire from Ugandan AU soldiers.
It was 1am and the vehicle had been heading to farmland outside Qoryooley to pick up tomatoes for sale in Mogadishu. It had left deliberately early, so the produce could be loaded and the vehicle arrive back in the city that morning.
The first shots riddled the minibus. The two men in the vehicle spilled out – one with a bullet wound to the leg. Then a rocket-propelled grenade (RPG) was fired, turning the minibus into a ball of flames.
Abdullahi Salah’s* brother was among the men that had been in the vehicle. He managed to get away and phoned Salah to tell him what had happened. The following morning, Salah arrived on the scene with three other men.
But as they were checking the wreckage of the minibus, Ugandan troops again opened fire, hitting the vehicle they had arrived in. “They shot up our vehicle, blew out the windows,” Salah told The New Humanitarian. “The car was riddled with bullets.”
The AU soldiers then detained the four men. “I was scared because everyone in our community fears the Ugandans,” he said.
His fears were warranted. After confiscating the men's phones, the soldiers began to beat them by the roadside. Salah was very specific that 81 Ugandan soldiers were involved. “When the beatings stopped, I counted them,” he said.
The men were then taken to the AU base in Qoryooley, where they were beaten again, this time by five Ugandan women soldiers using belts.
When they were finally questioned through an interpreter – in the presence of a senior local official and commander of the pro-government Darwish militia – the Ugandans insisted Salah’s vehicle belonged to al-Shabab, as did his brother’s minibus they RPG’d the night before.
“I told them that you torched my brother's minibus and have now shot up my vehicle, and we have nothing to do with al-Shabab,” said Salah.
The interrogators said the AU soldiers had been on an operation in the area, and the arrival of the two vehicles had spoiled it. They calculated that 580 bullets had been fired, and made an unusual offer.
“They said we either have to pay for the bullets, or leave it at that [and not lodge any complaint],” alleged Salah. “What else could we do? We responded that there’s nothing we can do to hold you to account – and we just want to leave.”
They were then let go.
Salah said he has lived his whole life in the Lower Shabelle region: “If you put both of your hands with mine, we won’t have enough fingers to count how many people I personally know that have been killed, wounded, or disappeared because of ATMIS.”
* A pseudonym was requested out of fear of possible reprisal.
In July 2017, Ali Abdi Hassan was finishing his evening prayers at home, one of his daughters climbing on his back as he bowed low. That’s when he first noticed the sound of jet engines above, but ignored it. He lived in the village of Qabri Sharif in the Lower Juba region controlled by al-Shabab: Warplanes streaking overhead was common.
It was an evening like any other in his village. Supper was being prepared and some neighbours – mainly livestock herders like Hassan – had dropped by. His children were next door finishing up at the Qu’ran school.
The first missile fired struck just outside his home and the entire house shook. The second hit the Qu’ran school, and the third a clump of trees where the children had run to take shelter.
When it was all over, four people – all members of Hassan’s immediate and extended family – were dead. That included his two-year-old daughter, Deeqo Abdi Hassan. Among the wounded were his 11-year-old daughter, Ifrah Abdi Hassan, and his six-year-old nephew, Abdi Aden Habashow, whose arm was torn off by the blast.
“There are two governments in Somalia, and our village was governed by the government waging war from the bushes (al-Shabab),” Hassan told The New Humanitarian. “But we were not involved in the war or any conflicts – we’re just livestock herders.”
He heard on the radio the next day that the Kenya Defence Forces – a member of the AMISOM coalition – had conducted the airstrike on Qabri Sharif. “That's when I started crying. I felt more pain knowing there is no justice when you’re harmed by the [AU] forces,” he said. “Everyone in Somalia knows this.”
Hussein Isak Salad was 17 years old when he was shot dead by an AMISOM soldier. He was a minibus conductor, supporting a sickly mother in an IDP camp on the outskirts of Mogadishu where they both lived.
In 2014, his minibus was driving behind a three-vehicle AMISOM convoy transporting fuel. According to the official AMISOM account, the minibus was deemed suspicious as it had followed the convoy for some time with full headlights on. There is some confusion over whether the minibus had stopped or tried to overtake the convoy, but an AMISOM soldier fired what was described as warning shots “into the air” – from a belt-fed machine gun – and a bullet hit Hussein in the head.
“He fell into the minibus and died instantly,” his uncle, Isak Aden, told The New Humanitarian. “The blood from his head spilled onto the passengers.”
The AMISOM vehicle involved in the shooting drove off. The minibus, tuk-tuk drivers, and people who had witnessed the shooting in an area of the city called Tabelaha Sheikh Ibrahim, gave chase – following the convoy all the way to the then-AMISOM base at Stadium Mogadishu, 10 kilometres away. AMISOM forces leaving the scene of a civilian shooting has been well documented.
When the civilians arrived at the base to lodge a complaint, they were told to go to the headquarters of the Criminal Investigation Directorate. “That’s where the body [of my nephew] was [taken and] stored,” said Aden.
After months of persistence, Aden managed to get hold of leaked documents from AMISOM – including a board of inquiry report – in which the force admitted the shooting. The board’s report said Hussein was shot by an AMISOM soldier “while performing AMISOM duties” – which, under the Status of Mission Agreement, provides him with immunity.
“They murdered [Hussein], admitted to it, and identified the AU soldiers involved,” said Aden. “But it’s like his death doesn’t matter. We want justice. That’s the least the mother of Hussein deserves.”
Despite repeated emails to AUSSOM, The New Humanitarian did not get a response to the allegations before publication.
Worldwide, civilian deaths during counter-insurgency operations are unconscionably common. Yet security forces tend to escape punishment. From killings by UK troops in Northern Ireland, to NATO air and ground operations in Afghanistan and Iraq, a history of uninvestigated actions has left grieving families without justice or closure.
In Somalia, that impunity has soured relations between AU forces and the Somali public – to the benefit of al-Shabab, which projects a powerful nationalist narrative.
Its record has also complicated the AU’s long-standing goal of securing UN-assessed contributions to finance its peace operations. Earlier negotiations within the world body foundered in part over whether the missions would comply with IHL.
Yet the AU has made progress in developing codes of conduct and tightening disciplinary processes. It has, for example, banned the use of indirect artillery fire – where the target is not in line of sight – and formally adopted a zero tolerance position on sexual exploitation and abuse.
“When it comes to compliance with human rights and IHL, as a result of very terrible experiences, lessons have been learnt and there have been a lot of institutional development,” Solomon Dersso, director of the think-tank Amani Africa, told The New Humanitarian.
That helped pave the way, in December 2023, for Security Council Resolution 2719, which created a framework for the UN to finance 75% of the cost of AU operations – although it’s unlikely a United States objection can be overcome and the mechanism adopted to fund AUSSOM.
Soldiers shielded from prosecution
Dahir Mohamed Ali is a senior human rights lawyer with the Heegan law firm in Mogadishu. He is representing the families of the victims of what has become known as the Qoryooley massacre, in which Ugandan AMISOM troops opened fire on a minibus near the town of Qoryooley in 2016, killing six civilians. The soldiers also torched the vehicle.
The case generated plenty of media attention and attracted the support of the speaker of parliament, MPs, and some government ministers. AMISOM accepted responsibility and said they would pay compensation, according to documents seen by The New Humanitarian. But there have been no prosecutions or financial restitution for the families, said Ali.
At the heart of the problem is the Status of Mission Agreement (SOMA) signed between the Somali government and the AU in 2007, granting blanket immunity to AU forces. Although the SOMA commits AMISOM soldiers to abide by all Geneva Conventions, they are also immune from any legal process in Somalia.
Instead, AMISOM soldiers fall under the “exclusive jurisdiction” of their respective countries regarding “any criminal offences which may be committed by them” in Somalia. UN peacekeepers worldwide are similarly indemnified.
“There have been numerous cases of AU killings that have been taken up with local courts, and taken up by MPs, but there has been no compensation, let alone accountability,” Ali told The New Humanitarian.
Golweyn is an example that even courts with jurisdiction may hesitate to prosecute to the fullest extent of the law. The Ugandan soldiers involved in the killings were eventually court-martialled, with two sentenced to death. But the Ugandan appeals court quashed that verdict – although all the men have been sentenced to long stretches in prison.
While Qoryooley and Golweyn made the headlines, the reality for most victims is a silent suffering – either out of fear of retribution, or because their cases have never come to light.
“Most of the cases of human rights abuses committed by AU forces in Somalia have gone unreported and undocumented,” said Ali. “Most civilian victims don’t have access to the government, or the head of the AU mission [to lodge a complaint]: There is nobody to defend their rights or fight their case.”
“AUSSOM is the same as ATMIS and AMISOM”
Clare Brown is an independent human rights lawyer who has worked in Somalia for over a decade researching and defending victims of human rights abuse. She, along with a number of NGOs, have been collaborating with AU forces to bolster their internal accountability procedures to allow civilians to report incidents of abuse.
The main mechanism is the AU’s Civilian Casualty Tracking, Analysis, and Response Cell (CCTARC), set up to track violations. But it has no independent funds to pay compensation, there is a complicated reporting procedure, and, more fundamentally, it has not been prioritised by the mission, troop-contributing countries, or donors.
Although there have been cases of compensation being paid to the families of those killed by AU troops, “the engagement I have had with CCTARC over the years indicates that it has never really functioned effectively”, said Brown. “There is certainly no transparency, consistency, or predictability to these payments.”
Dersso, who led an assessment mission to Somalia in 2018 on the AU's compliance with IHL and human rights, is less dismissive of CCTARC. “Certainly it has its limitations, but that doesn’t mean it's functionally useless,” he noted.
But domestic perceptions are paramount. Most Somalis fail to differentiate between the AU’s three separate missions, seeing them all as unaccountable foreign interventions, which many believe are merely a tool of Western interests designed to keep Somalia dependent.
“AUSSOM is the same as ATMIS and AMISOM. A new name, but the same force,” said Abdullahi Salah*, who alleged his vehicle was shot up, and he and three other men were detained and beaten by AU soldiers in 2023. “This is why I won’t pursue any justice – there is nothing that can be done when they do bad things to you.”
But the more essential problem, said Dersso, is why there is an intervention in the first place – and what that says about the more than three decades of state failure in Somalia.
“The fundamentals of what’s broken at the domestic political level need to be fixed,” he noted. “You can’t continue lurching from one mission to another. Somalis need to have a national political settlement, otherwise we will have this perpetual insecurity.”
* A pseudonym was requested out of fear of possible reprisal.
With additional reporting by Obi Anyadike.
