ADDIS ABABA (Halbeeg News) – Ethiopian government has finally broken the silence on the allegations that troops from Somalia took part in Tigray conflict.
In a statement, Ethiopian foreign ministry denied that Somali soldiers fought alongside federal troops in the ongoing conflict in its Tigray region.
‘We have seen reports about Eritrean troops that have crossed into Ethiopia,” Ethiopian Foreign Ministry spokesman Dina Mufti said in a statement. “We are also witnessing similar reports about Somalian soldiers participating in the same campaign. Both of these claims are false and unfounded.”
Letter to president Farmajo
Somali parliament’s Foreign Relations Committee urged president Mohamed Abdullahi Farmaajo to intervene in the situation and direct the government explain the whereabouts and state of hundreds of Somali youth who were reportedly undergoing military training in Eritrea.
The letter also called on the government to dispatch a team to Asmara, the capital of Eritrea to confirm whether the Somali nationals are ‘alive or dead’.
The demand by parliament follows claims by Abdisalan Yusuf Guled, the former deputy spy chief of Somalia’s National Intelligence and Security Agency (NISA) saying that over 370 Somali soldiers died in the Tigray conflict.
Guled said the soldiers sent to Eritrea for training were redeployed to fight alongside the Ethiopian army, a claim shot down by the Somali government.
Somali Information Minister Osman Dubbe dismissed the claims saying the reports of its soldiers going missing were “fabricated” for political reasons.
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