Amnesty said since late 2007 it had received an increase in reports of violations against civilians by Ethiopian forces who helped the government oust Islamist leaders at the end of 2006.
"SLAUGHTERED LIKE GOATS"
Among the most common were allegations of gang rape and reports of civilians being slaughtered like goats - their throats slit - and left lying in the street or their homes because sniper fire made it too dangerous to collect the bodies.
Last month, Amnesty said Ethiopian troops killed 21 people in Mogadishu's Al Hidaaya district - seven of the victims had their throats cut. Ethiopia dismissed the report as lies, saying its soldiers had never been involved in such incidents.
One person told Amnesty of a report that Ethiopian soldiers had slit the throat of a young child in front of the mother.
In another account, a witness only named as Ceebla'a said she saw Ethiopian soldiers rounding up three men whose bodies were found in the street the next morning.
One had been strangled with electrical wire, another had his throat cut, while the third one had been chained ankle to wrist, his testicles smashed.
Haboon, aged 56, told Amnesty Ethiopian troops raped a neighbour's 17-year-old daughter in mid-2007. She said when the girl's two younger brothers tried to defend her, Ethiopian soldiers beat them and gouged out their eyes with a bayonet. She said she did not know what happened to them next.
"Even their mother didn't wait to see, she just fled," Amnesty said.
It said there was a marked increase in executions of civilians by Ethiopian troops in the last two months of 2007. The rise appeared, in part, to have been in retaliation for an ambush of Ethiopia soldiers in early November in which the bodies of several Ethiopians were dragged through the streets.
The report quoted witnesses who accused the Islamist al Shabaab militia of indiscriminate attacks on civilians and threatening journalists.
