President Mohamud pays second visit to Somali soldiers training in Eritrea

GOOBJOOG NEWS|ASMARA: President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud, accompanied by Eritrea’s Head of State, Isaias Afwerki, paid a visit to the Somali National Forces, who have completed military training in Eritrea.

The trainees, numbering in the thousands, were officially inaugurated on Friday after undergoing intensive military training for almost four years.

Mohamud held a little chit-chat with one of the soldiers, who assured him that they were ready to come back home and defend their country.

The President commended the SNA soldiers for their endurance during training and extended his gratitude to Eritrea for training the young men.

This was President Hassan Sheikh’s second visit to the Horn of Africa nation to check on the Somali soldiers after his first visit barely a month into office in July, where he promised to bring the soldiers back into the country. Four months down the line, the soldiers are yet to come back to their families, whom they left in 2019 to supposedly leave for Qatar for training, only to end up in the Eritrean Republic.

It is not yet clear if President Mohamud’s itinerary includes bringing the soldiers back into the country or not; only time will tell, as the Somali Presidency is also mum on the issue.

The training of around 5,000 soldiers sent to Eritrea by the Farmajo administration has sparked widespread condemnation after parents of the young men said they were not aware of their sons’ whereabouts three years down the line until 2021, when they got wind of their whereabouts, only for some of them to learn that their sons had died during training. 

Another controversy involved the soldier’s participation in the Tigray conflict, a claim strongly denied by the previous administration.

It is now highly hoped that President Mohamud will finally live up to the parents’ expectations of bringing their sons home after he vowed to do everything in his power to do so and to bring to the country the much-needed manpower required to defend the country against the ruthless Khawarij militants who have continued to wreak havoc on the country with their terrorist activities.