A/HRC/15/48 exploded. Four AMISOM soldiers also died in an attack directed at the presidential palace. The most egregious incident occurred on 24 August 2010 when suicide bombers attacked Hotel Muna, killing at least 32 persons, including 4 members of parliament, hotel workers and others. Observers described the incident, as part of which the two suicide bombers blew themselves up, as one of the most violent witnessed in the capital for some time. As the fasting month of Ramadan began on 11 August 2010, it was reported that the hardline militant groups Al–Shabaab, Hizbul Islam and Ahlu Sunnah Waljama’a had vowed to increase their attacks on TFG and AMISOM troops throughout the month. 15. These incidents added to the toll of suffering that Somalis have endured for so long. According to a report by the Elman Peace Center of Somalia,1 the death toll rose in the first seven months of 2010 as a result of increased shelling and fighting. It stated that: “at least 918 civilians died and 2,555 others were injured in violence since January … The death toll of the first seven months of 2010 is higher than that of the same period of 2009. Most of the casualties were caused by shelling by the warring groups in Mogadishu”. Some 745 people died and 3,435 others were injured in the same period in 2010. While most of the casualties appeared to have been caused by violent attacks by the militant group Al–Shabaab and its allies, against TFG and AMISOM forces and retaliatory attacks by the latter, direct fighting between moderate Islamists, namely Ahlu Sunnah, and Al–Shabaab, combined with inter– clan clashes in central Somalia, also contributed to the higher number of deaths. 16. A press release from Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) contained in the weekly report of the Protection Cluster Update of 6 August 2010 also provides a good description of the nature and scale of casualties caused by the continued fighting and shelling in Mogadishu during the first half of 2010. It stated that, of a total of 2,854 patients treated by MSF–sponsored medical teams at its hospital in Dayniile, Mogadishu, in the last seven months, 48 percent had suffered “war–related injuries”. It further stated that”: “in the 84– bed hospital, 64 percent of the war–wounded patients sustained serious blast injuries, largely consistent with continuous intensive mortar fire in the city residential areas. Notably, 38 percent of the people with war–related injuries were women and children under 14 years of age.” The register of the surgical programme at the hospital, which began its operations in September 2007, showed that 50 per cent of the 11,888 patients to date have suffered “war–related injuries”. 17. In addition, specific reports received by the United Nations from its partners listed more than 290 incidents during the period from January to June 2010 in which civilians were reportedly injured or killed as a result of failure of parties to the conflict, including TFG and AMISOM forces, to adhere to the principles of international humanitarian law relating to the protection of civilians. The waging of hostilities in urban areas – as provoked by Al–Shabaab – inevitably brings with it huge risks to the civilian population, particularly if the principles of international humanitarian law of proportionality, targeting of only military objects and the requirement to take precautionary measures to avoid civilian casualties are disregarded. Both TFG and AMISOM have suffered many fatal casualties as a result of attacks by Al–Shabaab. 18. In–depth interviews carried out by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and UNPOS of a cross–section of individuals who had fled south–central Somalia in recent months and taken shelter in the Dadaab refugee camps in Kenya confirmed the ongoing patterns of violations of international human rights and humanitarian law, including failure by the parties to protect civilian populations adequately and the use and recruitment of children and young people. The interviews also 1 6 See http://www.elmanpeace.org/news-2009-Aug5/22/death_toll_in_somali_fighting_rises_this_year_group.aspx