Is this incompetence or intention?

FOR MORE THAN a decade after the U.S. began counterterrorism airstrikes in Somalia, there was no mechanism for locals to report civilian casualties directly to Africa Command. Last June, that changed when AFRICOM finally created a web portal to field allegations. But there was a catch — actually, several.

You need a computer or smartphone as well as internet access to communicate with AFRICOM. But Somalia is the least wired country on Earth, with just 2 percent of people regularly using the internet in 2017, the last year for which such statistics are available, according to the International Telecommunication Union, a United Nations agency. Where al-Shabab holds sway, there is almost no online access as the group has “prohibited companies from providing access to the internet and forced telecommunication companies to shut data services in al-Shabaab-controlled areas,” according to the U.S. State Department.

The command added a feature to its website that allows it to be read in the Somali language, but — in addition to accessing the internet — you need to know the English word “translate” and locate it on the tiny toolbar at the top of the webpage.

  The Intercept

Keeps the death of civilians count low.

AFRICOM has received roughly 70 responses over the last year, only seven of which, according to Manley, were related to civilian casualties. “Six were about one incident we were already assessing, and one was about another incident we were already assessing,” he told The Intercept. “Both incidents were assessed unsubstantiated.”

[...]

The complexity of AFRICOM’s online civilian casualty reporting process stands in stark contrast to the simpler mechanism used to turn Somalis into government boosters and informants. In recent years, Special Operations Command Africa, or SOCAFRICA, began producing propaganda leaflets meant to induce members of al-Shabab to defect and encourage Somalis to provide information about militants. All are written in Somali and include local telephone numbers to contact authorities.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.