Al shabab extremists in Somalia have stoned a young man to death in the southern coastal city of Barawe late on Sunday after he was found of guilty of raping, an Islamist militia commander said.
A regional court sentenced the Hussein Ibrahim Mohamed to be stoned to death for raping a girl mothered by his sister, according to an unidentified Islamist commander who was talking to a crowd of people as the 26 year old man was being stoned late on Sunday.
At least two hundred people in the city of Barawe gathered at open ground in the city center to watch how the execution was being carried out, but some residents say they were compelled to watch the killing.
“It was not our intention to watch such very shocking incident, but we were ordered to do so and I am sorry that I have watched the killing of the young man whom I knew for more than ten years” a resident who demanded anonymity said by telephone from the city.
Since early last year Somali Islamists carried out beheadings, stoning, amputations and other punishments on people who were accused of different crimes.
Two Islamist rebel groups in Somalia Al shabab and Hezbal Islam have been escalating attacks against the Somali government since May last year to topple it, but the government with the help of AU peacekeepers in Mogadishu is still managing to defend itself.
Somalia hasn’t had a functioning central government since 1991 when warlords toppled the former military ruler General Mohamed Siyad Barre and then turned on each other for power struggle.
Shafi’i Mohyddin Abokar is the NewsBlaze reporter in Somalia. Contact him through NewsBlaze.
