President Hassan Mohamud has on Monday visited Eritrean trained troops who have recently returned home.
Speaking to Somali special forces trained in Eritrea, who are now in Mogadishu, President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud commended the leadership of Somali National Army for leading and coordinating the ongoing operations to eliminate terrorists.
The head of the state told tge troops at General Gordan in Mogadishu who recently returned from training in Eritrea to be ready for deployment to the frontlines and battle against Al-Shabaab in Somalia.
“I and the Somali people are happy for your return. From today onwards, we are preparing and moving to face the enemy. We want the new mission to liberate the rest of the areas to be faster than the previous one, and to be completed in a short period of time.” said the president of Somalia, Hassan Sheikh Mohamud.
In conclusion, the President thanked the government of Eritrea for its support to the people and the government of Somalia during the difficult time of the liberation of the country.
The troops that the President of Somalia visited on Monday were flown to Mogadishu on the 21st of December 2022 after training in Eritrea.
Somalia has suffered from decades of civil war, political violence and an Islamist insurgency.
Even though president Hassan Sheikh Mohamud visited the troops in Eritrea last July; their return is set to end months of worry among families who feared they might have been recruited under false pretence.
The UN special rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Eritrea, Mohamed Abdelsalam Babiker, in June last year referred to “reports that Somali soldiers were moved from military training camps in Eritrea to the frontline in Tigray, where they accompanied Eritrean troops” supporting Ethiopian federal forces against rebels.
The president said Monday, bringing all the soldiers home would take until January.
