Parliament presses Farmaajo on ‘Eritrean trained’ youth

The Committee said in a statement the President owed the nation an explanation on the state and whereabouts of the Somali nationals.

According to the committee, the President must tell the nation whether the youth are ‘alive or dead’.

Multiple reports this past week have claimed the Somalis may have been deployed by President Isaias Afwerki  alongside his forces to reinforce Ethiopian federal troops fighting the Tigray rebels.

Senior security officials have in the past confirmed to Goobjoog News hundreds of youth who went missing from Mogadishu in 2018 had been taken to Eritrea for military training.

However there has been no word from the government since then on whether they completed the training. Families whose children were part of the recruits have said they are yet to get any information from the government on the whereabouts of their children.

Foreign Relations Committee chairman Abdulkadir Ali said the parents of missing children want answers on their whereabouts.

“The parents of these young men deserve an explanation and it’s upon the leaders of the FGS to come clean on this  as well as we expect evidences on this matter,” Ali tweeted.

Former National Intelligence and Security Agency (NISA) Deputy director Abdisalam Guled told Goobjoog TV Monday ‘several’ Somali trainees commanded by Eritrean military have been killed in the ongoing conflict in Tigray.

Guled said he had obtained information about the Somalis from senior Ethiopian military officials.

Opposition groups have in the past accused Farmaajo of planning to bring back the trainees to support his re-election bid.