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Child soldiers caught in chaos of Somalia

Associated Press


By Mohamed Olad Hassan and Elizabeth A. Kennedy

January 13, 2007

MOGADISHU, Somalia.  Adirisaq Khalid Ahmed was shining shoes in Mogadishu's labyrinthine marketplace when a soldier from the country's Islamic movement approached, asking him to join.

Ahmed, 16, said yes.

Two months later, the Islamic militia has been driven from power and an unknown number of young soldiers like Ahmed are hiding in and around the capital, some of them wounded and too frightened to leave their homes.

Interviews with boys as young as 14 who said they fought in the recent weeks of violence in Somalia lend credence to accusations that children have been recruited for battle.

The government and the Islamic movement have denied recruiting child soldiers, but Christian Balslev-Olesen, UNICEF's Somalia representative, said Friday that witness accounts suggest otherwise.

"I fought with the enemy and was shot," Ahmed said from his home, where his uncle is helping him recover from gunshots to his back and thigh. "But I am still ready to fight when I recover from my wounds."

Balslev-Olesen said there was evidence of child soldiers being recruited by both sides in Somalia. The U.N. estimates 300,000 child soldiers are involved in conflicts worldwide, and children have fought in many African wars.

The Council of Islamic Courts seized control of the capital and much of the south six months ago. Somali troops, backed by the Ethiopian military, routed the Islamic militia two weeks ago.

Awale Sheik Osman, 14, said he killed several "hostile" soldiers -- he didn't know if they were Ethiopian or Somali government troops -- in Idale, 35 miles southwest of the government base of Baidoa. Now back in Mogadishu and living with his mother, he's frightened to leave the house.

"Unfortunately I got a bullet in my left hand, but I wanted to die for the defense of my religion," he said. Awale said he was recruited at a mosque near his house.



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