Shebabs Somalia [3/3]: the scourge of forced recruitments
Audio 02:25
The shebab on patrol in the suburbs of Mogadishu.
(Illustrative image) (Photo: Reuters)
By: Florence Morice Follow
3 min
Over the past two years, and against the backdrop of a serious political crisis in Somalia, Islamist insurgents have regained ground.
According to the UN, cases of forced recruitment of children have increased this year compared to 2020. This pushes many families to flee rural areas under the control of shebabs for the city.
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From our special correspondent in Baidoa, in southwestern Somalia,
Zoulikha is the mother of seven children.
It was to save herself the pain of seeing them join the shebabs that she fled her village, in the district of Berdale, entirely controlled by the insurgents.
“
They take the children as soon as they turn 15,
” she says.
Either by threatening us or by indoctrinating them.
They convince them that if they die in battle, they will reach Heaven
.
The pressure was enormous and I had to leave before that happened
.
"
In February and April, UNHCR welcomed two waves of displaced people from this area to Baidoa.
7,000 people in total, fleeing a forced recruitment campaign
"
If the parents refuse to hand over their children, sometimes they impose exorbitant fines on them to force them,"
explains
Adam Ali Ibrahim, who coordinates the reception of displaced people in the South-West State.
This is how we see parents forcing their children to leave the city to return to the village and join the shebabs.
They do not have the choice.
These
are vulnerable populations, who are not armed and are entirely under the control of the shebabs
”.
Putting pressure on families
To dictate their law and fill their ranks with young fighters, the shebabs will stop at nothing, deplores Abdullahi Watiin, chief of staff to the president of the Southwest region.
“
Shebabs also rely on traditional leaders to put pressure on families,”
he describes.
And do not even hesitate to put some parents in prison, to force them to enroll their children. It's really hard for them, and that's one of the reasons the number of displaced people keeps increasing.
"
Prison is sometimes also the fate sometimes reserved for the relatives of those who dare to desert. Hassan was forcibly recruited by the Shebabs at the age of 14, then extirpated from their ranks, thanks to one of his uncles. "
When I deserted, the shebabs arrested my parents, and they called me to tell me: '
We are holding your relatives, if you want us to release them, you have to come back
.'
I told them, "You can kill them, I won't come back." And luckily, they released them.
"
Of these six months spent in the ranks of the Shebabs, Hassan especially remembers the long hours of ideological training: "
They tell me:" Your father is not a good Muslim, neither is your grandfather. They are our enemies. But you are a good Muslim because you are going to fight them with us. "
An ideology, he says, that he absorbed without really understanding at the time and of which, as a young adult, he perceives the horror today.
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Somalia
Rights of the child