UN Atrocities in Somalia

According to an article published in the Online Edition of the New York Post for July 19, 1997, UN peacekeeping forces in Somalia committed atrocities. The following were among the things reportedly done to the Somali.

• Belgian troops roasted a child over a fire. The photograph that was published showed the Belgian troops grinning.
  
  
• Belgian troops forced fed a Somali child a mixture of salt water, vomit, and worms.
  
  
• UN troops raped the Somalis.
  
  
• Italian troops applied electrodes to the hands and genitals of a naked Somali soldier.
  
  
• Somalis were denied food and water, had the soles of their feet burned, and were hurled against razor wire.
  
  
• A Canadian parachute unit tortured and then killed a Somali teenager and then photographed themselves by the body.
  
  

The Post article did not estimate what percentage of the 75,000 UN troops were involved in the atrocities.

The Deseret News (Utah) reported in its Sunday edition for June 15, 1997 that "Two Italian generals resigned their posts Saturday amid a growing scandal linking Italian peacekeepers to the torture of Somalian villagers." The two generals were in charge of the Italian contingent of the peacekeepers. The article reported that Italian and German soldiers took revenge for the death of an Italian soldier by firing "machine guns and launched grenades at the town of Jalalaxi for an hour even though the villagers had nothing to do with the lieutenant's death".

In an article on June 14, 1997, the Deseret News, using information from the New York Times News Service, reported that photographs of the atrocities were causing " wave of soul-searching" in Italy.