MOGADISHU (Somaliguardian) – Somalia’s federal government is considering bringing thousands of soldiers trained in Eritrea back home, months after the United Nations and the United States said Somali recruits had been moved from Eritrean training camps to northern Ethiopia, VOA Somali service reported on Tuesday.
Eritrean military officials are visiting the capital Mogadishu in an effort to assess areas to which the soldiers are due to be deployed and to discuss the matter with Somali security experts, sources were quoted as saying.
Somali federal government is planning to deploy the soldiers, numbered around 5,000, in Southwest and Jubaland states and Eritrea will help equip the mobile force, which has received the toughest training Somali forces have so far undergone.
There were reports over the past weeks that Somali recruits in Eritrea had been subjected to “slavery conditions” and some of the parents of the missing sons said the youths had been used in forced labor.
The United Nations and the United States confirmed there were hundreds of Somali soldiers used as cannon fodder in Ethiopia’s Tigray region after completing a military training in Eritrea.
Contact us: info@somaliguardian.com
