UN condemns killings of women and children

The United Nations Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator for Somalia has condemned the recent killings of women and children in the south, according to a press statement issued by his office on Monday. Maxwell Gaylard said that during a visit last week to the southwestern villages of Xudur and Waajid villages, UN officials had received confirmation of several such incidents, including the killing in December 2003 of 10 women in the vicinity of Baidoa town. "This is a very disturbing trend and one that has shocked the communities themselves for both the unusual brutality of the killings and the intentional targeting of women and children," said Gaylard. The atrocity was reportedly committed by a militia group of one of the two major subclans of the area, apparently in revenge for earlier killings. Other incidents of abduction and rape of women and children had also been reported to the UN and local human rights organisations, said the statement. Fighting between factions of the Rahanweyn Resistance Army (RRA), which controls the Bay and Bakol regions, has been going on since July 2002, when a power struggle erupted between the RRA chairman, Col Hasan Muhammad Nur Shatigadud, and his two deputies, Shaykh Adan Madobe and Muhammad Ibrahim Habsade. Traditional elders who were trying to broker a peace deal have reportedly negotiated a ceasefire. Gaylard called on Somali leaders to take all possible steps to end the cycle of violence, and in particular to safeguard the security and welfare of unarmed civilians, including women and children, and to bring to justice those who had committed crimes against unarmed civilians.