Families say the men were recruited to work in Qatar, only to find themselves forced to serve in the Eritrean military

By Abdi Sheikh

MOGADISHU, Jan 28 (Reuters) – Ali Jamac Dhoodi thought his son was working as a security guard in Qatar, helping to prepare for next year’s World Cup soccer tournament. But one day last April, officers from Somalia’s national BroadCast Unitedligence service arrived with $10,000 in cash.

They told him his son was dead — not in Qatar but in Eritrea, one of the most secretive countries in the world.

“They showed me a picture on WhatsApp and asked me ‘Do you know this picture and his full name?’ I said ‘Yes, he is my son’,” Dhoodi, 48, told Reuters. “They said to me ‘Your son is dead’. I cried.”

They gave him money and told him not to ask questions.

Ali’s son was one of three Somali youths whose families told Reuters they were recruited by the federal government to work in Qatar but later turned up in Eritrea and forcibly sent to serve in the army. Two other families said their sons had disappeared.

Eritrea’s covert recruitment of young Somali men into its fighting forces has sparked outrage in a poor country where people are desperate for the chance to work abroad. Protests over the disappearance of new recruits broke out last week in the capital, Mogadishu, and the towns of Guriel and Galkayo.

Reports that Eritrean troops were involved in fighting that broke out in northern neighboring Ethiopia last November, which Eritrea and Ethiopia have strongly denied, have led some Somalis to worry that their sons may have been sent there.

Asked whether Eritrea had recruited, trained or sent Somalis to Ethiopia, Eritrea’s Information Minister Yemane Meskel told Reuters: “It’s ridiculous… There is a lot of false information everywhere.”

Somalia government spokesman Mohamed Ibrahim and Information Minister Osman Dube did not respond to requests for comment on the Somali government’s role in the recruitment, but Ibrahim said no Somalis were being sent to Ethiopia.

The leaders of Somalia, Ethiopia and Eritrea have grown closer since Ethiopia’s leadership change in 2018. Ethiopia and Eritrea were once enemies, but the two countries signed a peace agreement and have regular high-level visits. Somalia once accused Eritrea of ​​supporting Islamist rebels but now has friendly relations with Eritrea’s president.

“The bullet is the answer”

Hussein Warsam said his son Saddam, 21, was recruited to Qatar in October 2019 to work as a security guard. He had not been heard from for more than a year. Finally, he called from Eritrea last November.

“We were all shocked when we landed in Eritrea. We thought we were flying to Qatar,” he quoted his son as saying. “Dad, there is no life here. I have not seen any food except a piece of bread or a slice of bread since I left Somalia in 2019. When recruits protest or refuse orders, they answer with bullets.”

Sahra Abdikadir, whose son Aqil Hassan Abdi disappeared under similar circumstances in 2019, told Reuters that Aqil Hassan Abdi had called in January and said he was in a refugee camp in an unknown location in Eritrea.

Eritrea is a heavily militarized society that has never held elections, has no independent media and forces its citizens to hold government office indefinitely. Former guerrilla leader Isaias Afwerki has been president since 1993.

Since 1991, Somalia has had only limited central government rule.

Both countries have been involved in decades of conflict in the Horn of Africa region, often involving their much larger neighbor Ethiopia.

A regional security analyst who spoke on condition of anonymity told Reuters he knew from conversations with Somali security officials that about 1,000 Somalis were recruited and taken to Eritrea in at least three groups. One group has returned to Somalia, a second group could not be contacted and a third group is still in Eritrea.

Reuters could not confirm the details. (Reporting by Abdi Sheikh; Additional reporting by Omar Mohammed and Katharine Houreld; Writing by Omar Mohammed; Editing by Peter Graff)