MOGADISHU (Halbeeg News) – Former Somali president Hassan Sheikh Mohamud has called on Somali government to investigate into the claims that Somali troops ‘fought’ in Tigray war.
Speaking to the media, the leader urged president Mohamed Abdullahi Farmajo and other federal to break the silence about the transportation of Somali national recruits to Tigray region.
“I tell the former President Mohamed Abdullahi Farmaajo and his team, you cannot hide the fact of the youth sent to Eritrea from the people of Somalia anymore,” Mohamud said. “The leaders are the ones who face the people & tell them the truth even if it is bitter. Bring back the boys.”
The call by the former comes two days after a UN report alleged that recruits of the Somali National Army ‘fought’ in the Tigray war alongside Eritrean troops.
The report of the UN Human Rights Council, on the situation of human rights in Eritrea, said on Monday there were credible reports Somali soldiers were removed from their training camps and taken to the frontline in Tigray.
The revelations ad to previous complaints raised by some Somali families, who claimed their kin had been recruited in the Army and never been heard of again. The claims add to the concerns of the Eritrean army participation in Tigray, which rights groups accuse of atrocities.
Sudanese international law scholar Mohamed Abdelsalan Babiker, the UN Special Rapporteur who authored the report, did not travel to Eritrea or the frontline in Tigray. But said he received information indicating Somali soldiers were drafted to the battlefront.
“In addition to reports of the involvement of Eritrean troops in the Tigray conflict, the Special Rapporteur also received information and reports that Somali soldiers were moved from military training camps in Eritrea to the front line in Tigray, where they accompanied Eritrean troops as they crossed the Ethiopian border,” the report said.
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