Youssef

In 1993, this photo of Belgian soldiers holding a Somali boy over an open fire shocked the world. The soldiers were in Mogadishu as part of the UN-authorized Operation Restore Hope, supposedly there to protect Somalis and deliver humanitarian assistance. The photograph became evidence in a military prosecution. And what happened next was even more shocking. In June 1997, a Belgian military court acquitted the two soldiers, Claude Baert and Kurt Coelus, of assault, battery and threats. Their defence? They claimed it was merely a “game.” The court accepted that there was insufficient evidence that the boy had suffered bodily harm or that his life had been threatened. The prosecution appealed. In December 1997, the acquittal was confirmed. Imagine being the Somali child in that photograph. Imagine watching the men who held you over a fire walk free because a court decided there was insufficient proof that you had been harmed. This is part of the history that disappears when Western military interventions in Africa are remembered only through the language of “peacekeeping” and “humanitarianism.”