Bulo Burde residents flee al-Shabaab's oppressive rule

SABAHI
Friday, December 27, 2013

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Residents of Bulo Burde have grown increasingly concerned about al-Shabaab tactics after the militants started cracking down on existing rules regarding residents' clothing, hairstyles, leisure time and access to information.

For the past two months, al-Shabaab militants have been harassing youth they say are "dressing like infidels", residents in Somalia's Hiran region told Sabahi.

On a regular basis, al-Shabaab members roaming the streets round up anyone not abiding by the groups' strict dress code, according to Ismail Mohamed, a 28-year-old who fled Bulo Burde in November.

Mohamed, who used to own a general store in Bulo Burde, said he relocated to Beledweyne hoping to rebuild his life there in peace.

Back in Bulo Burde, he said, anyone wearing long pants and what the militants consider tight or fashionable clothing is targeted. They are taken to al-Shabaab headquarters where they receive a lecture, have their pants shortened on the spot, are stripped of their shirts and have their hair shaven.

Al-Shabaab also forbade residents from using smartphones and destroyed television sets in people's homes to cut them off from international news, said Hassan Mohamed, 54, an elder from Bulo Burde.

"Al-Shabaab has even forbidden young people from playing football to force youth to join the group once they cannot find anything else to occupy themselves with," he told Sabahi.

Mohamed said al-Shabaab was attempting to brainwash young people.

"Many times I found out that the group gathered youth in private venues to convince them that anyone who does not follow the practices of the group is an infidel," he said. "I spoke with some of the young people who were being influenced in that manner, one of whom was my nephew, and I was able to make him understand that al-Shabaab's ideology is flawed and one that he could not accept."
Youth flee Bulo Burde

Muse Dahir, 25, who spoke with Sabahi from Beledweyne, said he fled the Bulo Burde due to al-Shabaab's oppression.

"I was in form two in high school when my parents advised me to flee my city of birth, Bulo Burde, after many of my friends were indoctrinated by al-Shabaab to follow their ideology," Dahir said. "It is very difficult for a young person who opposes the wrong things al-Shabaab attempts [to do] to live under them."

Asha Salad, 49, a mother of four in Bulo Burde, said she sent her two sons to Mogadishu after they encountered problems from al-Shabaab on several occasions.

"One of my two sons was severely beaten by four members of al-Shabaab in front of the house after he refused to give up the football in his possession," she said. "They beat him mercilessly and continued to do that until he became unconscious. From then on, I decided to send my two oldest boys to live with relatives in Mogadishu."

Salad said her son has been afflicted with epilepsy as a result of the severe beating he received from al-Shabaab.

"He constantly gets seizures and when he was taken to the doctors they said he has suffered nerve damage," she said.

Salad said parents are faced with the difficult choice to send their children away to protect them from al-Shabaab.

"There is no parent who does not need his or her children, but what is worse for us is when they are forced to join al-Shabaab after being terrorized or beaten," she said. "I have seen many young people who have been forced to join for their own safety when they could no longer bear the hardships al-Shabaab inflicts."
'The people of Bulo Burde will be free'

Traditional elder Yasin Elmi, 60, said the people of Bulo Burde have not reaped any of the benefits associated with governance based on Islam, as al-Shabaab claims to provide.

"I have yet to see a governing [style] worse than al-Shabaab's. There is really nothing that I can say is something good they did for the people during their rule," he told Sabahi.

The only thing al-Shabaab has been good at is implementing orders against Islamic principles, such as extrajudicial killings, unlawful imprisonment and torture, and to prohibit food and other aid meant for civilians, Elmi said.

"With all these hardships, everyone can clearly see there is no good life [to be had] in Bulo Burde," he said.

Elmi urged Somali troops and the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) to come to their rescue and free the people of Bulo Burde from al-Shabaab.

Hiran police chief Colonel Isaq Ali Abdulle said local security forces along with AMISOM troops stationed in Beledweyne, located about 120 kilometers north-west of Bulo Burde, were preparing to free the town and any remaining territories in the region still under al-Shabaab control.

"The hardships that these al-Shabaab terrorists are inflicting on civilians is not limited to Bulo Burde, but also pastoralists in rural areas and their complaints have reached us," he told Sabahi.

Military operations to free the remaining territories from al-Shabaab had been delayed to make sure security forces were well equipped and to plan attacks with minimal risk to civilians, he said.

"Now everything is completed and soon the people of Bulo Burde will be free," Abdulle said.

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