Somalia denies troops' involvement in Ethiopia Tigray conflict

A commemoration ceremony is held by Ethiopian Federal Police in honor of the soldiers, who died during the military operation launched against the rebel Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) in Ethiopia, in front of Federal Police Station in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia on 3 November 2021. [Minasse Wondimu Hailu – Anadolu Agency]

Somalia’s presidential spokesman said on Tuesday that reports of Somali troops trained in Eritrea being involved in Ethiopia’s Tigray conflict are nothing but “rumours”.

Abdikarin Ali Kaar, who held a news conference in the capital Mogadishu, said 5,000 “missing” Somali trainees have been found and the government is working to return them to Somalia.

During President Hassan Sheikh Mahamud’s visit to Eritrea, he met the soldiers and the troops will return to the country to do the job for which they are trained, he said.

A 2021 UN report claimed that Somali soldiers, who were trained in Eritrea, crossed the Eritrean border with Ethiopia alongside Eritrean troops and took part in the Tigray conflict.

After Mahamud returned from Eritrea, he met the parents of the cadets and promised to bring their children home.

READ: Miss Ethiopia describes ‘harrowing ordeal’ of travelling to the UK

Unless otherwise stated in the article above, this work by Middle East Monitor is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. If the image(s) bear our credit, this license also applies to them. What does that mean? For other permissions, please contact us.