Mogadishu:-President of the Federal Republic of Somalia, President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud said on Monday that soldiers training in Eritrea will begin returning home this month in an exercise expected to last until January.
For months, rumours have swirled in Somalia that the soldiers may have been deployed to the war-torn Ethiopian region of Tigray.
“Before the end of this December they will start returning (home) and in January their return will be completed,” Mohamud told a diaspora forum during a visit to the United States, the President said.
“We have set everything on that matter and God willing we don’t expect any delays after now.”
Mohamud, who had pledged to bring the soldiers home in his election campaign, visited them in training camps in Eritrea in July.
Families without news of their relatives in the army protested several times last year during the presidency of Mohamud’s predecessor Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed, better known as Farmajo, demanding information about their whereabouts.
In late May, Farmajo said his government had sent around 5,000 soldiers to train in Eritrea.
He said their training ended last year but he had decided to delay their return to avoid disrupting parliamentary and presidential elections.
Source: AFP/ SONNA
