Belgian atrocities exposed

BRUSSELS - The Belgian government called for strong punishment after more photographs were released yesterday of Belgian paratroopers…

BRUSSELS - The Belgian government called for strong punishment after more photographs were released yesterday of Belgian paratroopers committing atrocities against Somali civilians during a 1993 UN peace mission.

"We will prosecute this without mercy. Such people do not belong in the army," the Defence Minister, Mr Jean Pol Poncelet, said after he saw new evidence collected by Brussels daily Het Laatste Nieuws, including a photograph of a para trooper urinating on a dead Somali.

The new revelations followed last week's arrest of two paratroopers charged with assault and battery in the burning of a Somali civilian. The cases came to light when a former paratrooper spoke anonymously and offered photographs to Het Laatste Nieuws earlier this month. One of the photographs showed Belgian soldiers holding a Somali man over a fire, seemingly roasting him alive.

The military auditor, Gen Jean Yves Minne, said the most serious accusation centres on the death of an alleged Somali thief. Reports claim soldiers forced the Somali into a container, left him in the scorching heat without water for two days, and found him dead afterwards.