Rape of two toddler girls in Somalia causes uproar

Two young girls aged just 3 and 4 years old were abducted and raped near their home in Afgoye on April 1, according to the girls’ parents, police and hospital officials in the Lower Shabelle region and Mogadishu.

The parents of the children told local media that their girls were coming home from school at around 5 PM in the Hawo Tako area when they were abducted by unknown men. After canvassing the neighbourhood, the parents found the girls nearly a day later, alone and visibly shaken.

The girls, who are cousins, were seriously injured in the sexual assault and were admitted to Medina hospital in Mogadishu for further treatment.

The hospital director, Dr Mohamed Yusuf Mohamed, said that the two girls were in critical condition and needed to undergo three major surgeries.

Representatives from the Somali parliament’s human rights committee visited the victims and their families at the hospital. They joined the parents in demanding the perpetrators be brought to justice.

The governor of the Lower Shabelle region, Ibrahim Adan Ali Najah has said that 18 people have been arrested in connection with the assault.

In February, two men Abdifatah Abdirahman Warsame, 24, and Abdishakur Mohamed Dige, 46, were executed by firing squad in the town of Bosaso after being convicted of raping a 12-year-old girl.

In the last few years, more rape cases have been reported in Somalia. In all but a handful of cases, the attackers are by and large rarely brought to justice and investigation into these crimes are stymied by a lack of forensic resources.  However, the appalling rape of two children as young as three and four is has repulsed the community and spurred immediate action.

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