“The forces of darkness in Somalia carry out regular executions, flogging, chopping of people's limbs and other gruesome acts on locals in areas under their control in order to terrorize the people into submission.” Don’t expect these words to be spoken out loud on the streets of Mogadishu, but you often hear them when speaking to people in private.

By Mary Young

The execution last week of two teenage girls by the militant Islamist group al-Shabaab in the central Somalia town of Beledweyne was the latest of a series of both known and unknown executions of people accused of various crimes.

The two young schoolgirls were accused of spying for the Somali government, which the Islamist insurgent movement has been fighting to topple for the past three years.

Confessions through torture
The victims are often accused of spying, adultery or sometimes unexplained crimes. They are killed by execution by firing squads, beheading, or even stoning, an outdated, gruesome and cruel form of capital punishment.

The accused never have the chance to see a lawyer or go through a proper legal procedure. The suspects' confessions are always the sole evidence advanced against them. Human rights activists, who wish to remain anonymous, say the confessions are gained through torture and that an unknown number of victims are awaiting their fate in Islamist jails.

The pain and agony of the condemned may have ended with their death, but hordes of families, friends, relatives, neighbours and acquaintances left behind have to live with open-ended grief and a sense of unexplained injustice.

‘Spying for the CIA’
Mohamed (name changed for fear of reprisal) is a close relative of a young man accused of spying for the CIA, the US Central Intelligence Agency. The man was executed publicly in the Islamist controlled southern town of Marka late 2009.

“He was a young man and never knew about what the CIA was and what it stands for. He was just a boy who loved to listen to music, but they grabbed him and killed him”, Mohamed told Radio Netherlands Worldwide.

“As relatives, friends and families of those summarily executed, we live with the pain almost every day. We don’t have a sense of closure for our ordeal; we are hopeless, hapless.“

Forced to watch
People in areas under Islamist control, which is much of the south and centre of Somalia, are often unable to voice their view for fear of facing severe punishment.

People - mainly women and children - are forced by the Islamist groups to attend the executions and other acts of punishment.

Draconian rule
“Last time, when they wrongly killed the young girls, they told people it was punishment and we thought it was just a lashing or something of that sort. But we were shocked to see the killings,” said a resident in Beledweyn, who asked not to be named for fear of retribution.

The harsh punishment carried out in public by al-Qaeda affiliated insurgents are intended to instil fear into people and gain absolute obedience to the Islamist group’s draconian rule.