Prime Minister Roble pledges to find Somali soldiers ‘missing’ in Eritrea
MOGADISHU, Somalia – After street protests in parts of the country, Somali Prime Minister Mohamed Hussein Roble has pledged to help locate thousands of soldiers who are believed to be training in Eritrea, though their families are being held in the country. darkness.
In recent months, families of young families have called on the government to provide full information on the plight of these young soldiers, with authorities often dismissing their claims that they may have participated in the Tigray War.
But PM Roble has now assembled a team to investigate their plight before giving a report got the implementation. It is believed that the number could be anywhere between 5,000 and 6,000 depending on what is aware of the training.
Reports released by the UN Special Rapporteur on Eritrea claimed that Somali soldiers had been smuggled into Ethiopia where they engaged in the Tigray War, with some sources claiming that hundreds of them could have been kidnapped or killed in Axum and other parts of Ethiopia.
The committee will be chaired by Minister of Defense Hassan Hussein Haji and its members will include the Minister of Interior, the Somali Ambassador to Ethiopia and the Commander of the Somali Army.
Already, the opposition coalition led by former presidents Sharif Sheikh Ahmed and Hassan Sheikh Mohamud has welcomed the idea of investigating the fate of these young soldiers, some of whom have not yet officially joined the army.
But some opposition politicians have expressed reservations, arguing that the panel includes ministers from the accused government and suggesting they cannot be trusted to produce an impartial report.
On February 16, Voice of America’s [VoA] The Somali service reported that the idea of training Somali military recruits in Eritrea was first launched in September 2018, when President Mohamed Abdullahi Farmaajo visited the country.
VOA said the training was largely secretive and independent of the Somali National Army command.
Earlier this year, the Somali government denied reports that its military recruits were participating in the fighting in Ethiopia’s Tigray region. Ethiopia has also denied reports that Somali soldiers were fighting alongside its troops in Tigray.
Senior Somali officials led by Information Minister Osman Abukar Dubbe have repeatedly denied allegations that the soldiers were deployed in Tigray. However, he concedes that indeed, there are soldiers training in Eritrea.
A Somali intellectual, who has sought anonymity for fear of reprisal, believes the problem is more complex and that the right people “may not speak for the interns,” Daily Nation reported.
“In Somalia, the recruitment process usually goes through a strict subjective assessment,” he said.
“We know that when a potential person is to be recruited for the military, they must be approved by a clan elder, a legislator or both.
He said doubts have been raised because elders or traditional lawmakers do not demand to know the whereabouts of “allegedly missing youth”.
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