Are Somali Soldiers Raping Refugees?
Reporting about rapes is no registered crime. But reporting about soldiers raping refugees put a Somali Journalist into trouble.
On Thursday January 10, Abdiaziz Abdinuur was hold in custody in Mogadishu. The authorities wanted to question him about an article wrote about a woman who claims to have been raped by soldiers in the refugee camp in Mogadishu last December. At present Abdiaziz is still in custody.
The report was filed by the US-based organisation Committee to Protect Journalists:
Abdiaziz Abdinuur, who is also known as “Koronto,” has reported for several local and international news outlets, including Dalsan Radio, Badri Media Productions, Radio Ergo, and the U.K.-based Daily Telegraph. He was summoned on Thursday to the Central Investigations Department (CID) in the capital for questioning in connection with his January 6 interview with an internally displaced woman who has claimed that she was raped by several soldiers last year, according to news reports and local journalists who spoke to Abdiaziz. No warrant was issued for the journalist’s arrest, and no charges have been filed against him, the sources said.
The woman has claimed that she was raped by Somali soldiers while living in a camp for internally displaced persons in Mogadishu in December, according to news reports. On January 6, Al-Jazeera English published a story of government soldiers raping internally displaced women in Mogadishu camps. It is unclear if the woman mentioned in the Al-Jazeera story is the woman whom Abdiaziz interviewed, but local journalists said the Al-Jazeera report is what led to police looking for the source of the allegations.
The news has been reported in international media but very few has been said about the source.
BALOBESHAYI 