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In Somalia, Mothers Fear Sons Were Sent to Ethiopia Conflict

Associated Press

   MOGADISHU, SOMALIA - Pressure is growing on Somalia's government amid
   allegations that Somali soldiers have been sent to fight in neighboring
   Ethiopia's deadly Tigray conflict.

   Mothers have held rare protests in Somalia's capital, Mogadishu, and
   elsewhere, demanding to know the fate of their children who originally
   were sent to Eritrea for military training. They fear their children
   have been deployed to the Tigray region, where Ethiopian forces have
   been fighting Tigray ones since November in a conflict that threatens
   to destabilize the Horn of Africa.

   "I heard that our children who were sent to Eritrea for military
   training have been taken and their responsibility was turned over to
   [Ethiopian Prime Minister] Abiy Ahmed to fight for him," Fatuma Moallim
   Abdulle, the mother of soldier Ahmed Ibrahim Jumaleh, 20, told The
   Associated Press.

   "According to the information I gathered, our children were taken
   straight to Mekelle city," the capital of the Tigray region, she said.
   "You may understand how I feel. I am a mother who carried her child for
   nine months in my belly. That's my blood and flesh."

   Ethiopia this week denied reports of the presence of Somali soldiers in
   Tigray, and it continued to deny the presence of Eritrean ones.

   Teaming up

   Abiy made peace with neighboring Eritrea in 2018, for which he was
   awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. Now critics say Ethiopian and Eritrean
   forces have teamed up in the conflict against a common enemy in the
   now-fugitive Tigray leaders, who dominated Ethiopia's government for
   nearly three decades before Abiy took office and embarked on a round of
   regional peacemaking that included Somalia.

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