MOGADISHU, Somalia (AP) – Pressure is growing on the Somali government amid allegations that Somali soldiers have been sent to fight the deadly Tigray conflict in neighboring Ethiopia.
Mothers have held rare protests in the Somali capital, Mogadishu, and elsewhere, demanding to know the fate of their children who were originally sent to Eritrea for military training. They fear their children have been deployed in the Tigray region, where Ethiopian forces have been fighting Tigray forces since November in a conflict that threatens to destabilize the Horn of Africa.
Fatuma Moallim Abdulle, the mother of a 20-year-old soldier, “heard that our children who were sent to Eritrea to train in the military and their responsibility was handed over to (Ethiopian Prime Minister) Abiy Ahmed to fight for he “. Ahmed Ibrahim Jumaleh, told The Associated Press.
“According to the information I gathered, our children were taken directly to the city of Mekele,” said the capital of the Tigray region. “You can understand how I feel. I’m a mother who carried her son for nine months in her womb. That’s my blood and flesh.”
This week, Ethiopia denied the presence of Somali soldiers in Tigray and continued to deny the presence of Eritrean soldiers.
Abiy made peace with neighboring Eritrea in 2018, for which he received the Nobel Peace Prize. Critics now say Ethiopian and Eritrean forces have joined forces in the conflict against a common enemy of the already fugitive Tigray leaders, who dominated the Ethiopian government for nearly three decades before Abiy took office and began in the realization of regional peace that included Somalia.
The chairman of the country’s parliamentary foreign affairs committee, Abdulqadir Ossoble Ali, has called on Somali President Abdullahi Mohamed Abdullahi to investigate allegations of involvement in the Tigray conflict.
“We have the right to oversee what our government is doing,” Ali wrote in the letter distributed to the media.
And former deputy director of the Somali intelligence agency, Ismael Dahir Osman, has said that “it is worth asking why these soldiers have not yet returned home after more than a year, when his training would have ended a long time ago. “
Somali Information Minister Osman Abokor Dubbe has this week denied “propaganda” that Somali soldiers who had been out of the country to train have been involved in the Tigray conflict.
“There are no Somali troops requested by the Ethiopian government to fight for them and fight Tigray,” he said.
The problem has arisen at a sensitive time in Somalia. The country will hold national elections in the coming weeks, but two federal states have refused to participate and the opposition accuses the president of trying to get ahead with a partial vote.
“The parents of these children continue to call us and have no contact with their children, and some of them were told that their boys are dead,” a presidential candidate told the AP of the opposition, Abdurahman Abdishakur Warsame. “According to the information we received, these boys were taken to war in northern Ethiopia. We ask for an independent national commission to investigate the matter and, if it is proven to be true, it will be a treason on a national scale. “