‘Bring back our boys’: Parents protesting in Mogadishu

The protest came a day after the Somali president visited military recruits trained in Eritrea for three years, who still never come back home.

News Keydmedia Online
11 July 2022

MOGADISHU, Somalia - Protesters have marched through Mogadishu streets carrying banners reading "Bring Back Our Boys" as pressure has mounted on the government to return five thousand military recruits trained secretly in Eritrea for the past three years.

Hundreds of parents have requested the government to work around the clock on the safe come back of their sons whom they did not see since their deployment to Eritrea in 2019 and 2020.

We are parents who have been missing their children dead or alive for three years. We ask president Hassan Sheikh to bring back our boy as soon as possible," said a mother.

The protest came a day after President Hassan Sheikh accompanied by Afwerki inspected the soldiers at their training bases in Eritrea, the first time the missing recruits are seen in public.

The former government led by Farmajo sent the cadets to Asmara without the knowledge of their families. Their recruitment was engineered and executed by Fahad Yasin, the former NISA director.

Last year, the UN reported the Somali soldiers fought in Tigray along with the Eritrean and Ethiopian forces during the battle against the Tigray rebel group [TPLF].

The current president who assumed office last month is currently on a four-day trip to Eritrea as he pledged to return the soldiers to Somalia as the country prepared a full-scale offensive to retake the remaining areas under Al-Shabaab control.

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