Civilians are completely at the mercy of armed groups in Somalia, says human rights group Amnesty International.
It says the situation is “dire” in the centre and the south with government troops, their Ethiopian allies and Islamist insurgents “out of control”.
They carry out killings, torture, rape, beatings, arbitrary detention and forced disappearances, a report says.
The Ethiopian government has dismissed the report as a “total fabrication” and demanded an apology.
“We have said repeatedly that our soldiers are the most disciplined soldiers in the world,” said foreign ministry spokesman Wahide Belaye.
“They have never cut anybody’s throat, never gang-raped any women, never deliberately shot civilians in Somalia.”
In Mogadishu, hundreds of people have stormed through the Bakara market area, hurling stones at cars and shops and setting fire to tyres in protest at rising food prices and fake currency.
Troops shot two people dead on Monday in similar protests.
People who have visited the capital, Mogadishu, recently say parts of it are a ghost town, but Amnesty says residents fleeing the city are prey for armed bandits on the road who rape women and girls and steal whatever they have taken with them.