Residents of Bulo Burde wave the Somali and Djiboutian flags to welcome the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) soldiers into the town on March 14, 2014, a day after the allied forces captured it from al-Shabaab. [AFP PHOTO / AU-UN IST PHOTO / ILYAS A.ABUKAR]
By Osman Mohamud in Mogadishu
Friday, March 28, 2014
Residents of Bulo Burde are worried about the fate of an unidentified number of children kidnapped by al-Shabaab on March 10th, days before the militants lost control of the town to allied forces.
"They forcefully abducted many children from Bulo Burde whose parents have communicated with us, but we still do not have an accurate number," said Hiran region police chief Colonel Ali Isaq Abdulle. "We are investigating the number of children they have kidnapped and then our plan is to counsel parents on the easiest way they can get their children back safely."
Abdulle told Sabahi this was not the first time al-Shabaab has kidnapped children from Bulo Burde to conscript them to fight with the militant group.
"We are still investigating the locations where they keep the children they kidnap," he said. "We will collaborate with civilians who live in the remote areas because the group has no power now to train the children they kidnap in the towns of Hiran province."
Yasin Jama, a 50-year-old traditional elder from Bulo Burde, said that when al-Shabaab found out there was an impending attack against them, they began telling residents that African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) forces were coming to wage war on Bulo Burde and kill innocent people. The fear this caused prompted many residents to flee.
Al-Shabaab took advantage of the resulting confusion to kidnap many children when they forced residents to attend a lecture on jihad on March 10th, Jama said.
"Al-Shabaab told parents to remove the children from the town as a way to save them and tricked them into sending their children with several cars driven by al-Shabaab [operatives], which resulted in many parents finding themselves in shock from losing their children," he told Sabahi.
He said he saw a mother wracked with grief when al-Shabaab took away her only child who was nine years old.
"The problem al-Shabaab is causing the public is one that has never been heard of before," Jama said.
Maryan Farah, 32, said her 11-year-old son was taken with the other children, but escaped from al-Shabaab on March 12th after the group tried to brainwash him.
"It is true that in the days prior to fleeing Bulo Burde, al-Shabaab was trying to run away with the children of the families who could not afford to leave the town like myself," she told Sabahi.
"But thanks to God, He spared my son whom the group wanted to brainwash by telling him they would give him money and a telephone to communicate with us and that he would be taught the advantages of Islam and jihad," she said. "Fortunately, my son is very intelligent and he slipped away from them before they took him outside the town."