Adow Mohamed, AfricaNews reporter in Nairobi, Kenya
An international human right lobby group, the Human Right Watch (HRW) has decried the continued civil right abuses inflicted on civilians in Somalia following the Kenya's incursion into the horn of African nation in October. HRW asked Kenya to investigate the death of villagers during an air strike by the Kenya Defence Forces (KDF) where an unconfirmed number of people were killed and scores injured.
“The government of Kenya should investigate the death of as many as 11 civilians during a Kenyan air force raid on Hosingow village in Somalia on December 20, 2011, Human Rights Watch said in a statement.
According to witnesses, KDF bombed makeshift huts including a school killing seven children and a woman. A second fighter jet attacked ground targets from low-flying aircraft using machine guns, killing one woman and at least two men, all civilians.
"One of the bombs struck near a street where people were running their businesses," another witness, Ahmed Yusuf, told AFP.
“A prompt and impartial investigation is needed into what happened in Hosingow village,” said Ben Rawlence, senior Africa researcher at Human Rights Watch.
“International humanitarian law, or the laws of war, obliges the parties to an armed conflict to take all feasible precautions to minimize harm to the civilian population.
Attacks that target civilians or civilian objects are prohibited, as are attacks that do not discriminate between civilians and military objectives, or that were expected to cause civilian harm that was greater than the anticipated military gain. The laws of war require governments to investigate credible allegations of violations,” read the statement seen by the Africanews.
Kenya military spokesman Emmanuel Chirchir confirmed the air strike by denied any civilian casualties. He however warned civilians to keep away from Al-Shabaab territories.
"We call on peace loving Somalis not to interact Al Shabaab as KD intensifies air attacks in South-Central Somalia," the major said in his tweeter account.
Hosingow is in a territory manned by the terror group Al-Shabaab but HRW could not confirm whether its forces were there when the Kenya military attacked the village.
It is not the first the Human Right Watchdog is raising the red flag about the civilian attacks by Kenya defence forces. On October, Daniel Bekele, Director, Africa Division, Human Rights Watch, wrote to Kenya’s defence minister Yusuf Haji when Kenyan air force bombarded an internally displaced persons (IDP) camp on the outskirts of the town of Jilib in Somalia.
The international humanitarian organization Médecins sans Frontières reported five civilian deaths following the aerial bombardment.
“International humanitarian law applies at sea and prohibits deliberate attacks on civilians. It requires that warring parties take all feasible precautions to ensure that objects attacked are valid military targets. International human rights law, which was also applicable, permits the use of lethal force outside of zones of armed conflict only when it is strictly and directly necessary to save human life,” he said.
“The Kenyan Armed Forces have an international legal obligation to conduct any and all operations, both within and outside of Kenya, in accordance with international human rights law and international humanitarian law,” he further said in the letter.
In the same months Kenyan fishermen were killed and their boat sunk by Kenya army in the Indian Ocean waters when they “defied” orders to stop. Those who survived the ordeal were allegedly beaten at the army base by Kenyan military personnel before being transferred to local police custody before being released.
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