Seething anger as youth tricked with Qatar WorldCup jobs but sent to HGDEF military camps
Posted: 28 Jan 2021, 13:14
MOGADISHU (Reuters) - Ali Jamac Dhoodi thought his son was working as a security guard in Qatar, helping prepare for next year's soccer World Cup. Then one day last April, officials from Somalia's National Intelligence Agency arrived with $10,000 in cash.
They told him his son had died - not in Qatar, but in Eritrea, one of the world's most secretive countries.
"They showed me a picture from their 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 died'. I cried.
They gave him the money, and told him not to ask questions.
Ali's son was one of three young Somali men whose families told Reuters they had been recruited by Somalia's federal government for jobs in Qatar, only to surface in Eritrea, where they were sent to serve in a military force against their will. Two other families said their sons had simply disappeared.
The apparent secret recruitment of young Somali men for a fighting force in Eritrea is stirring public anger in Somalia, a poor country where opportunities to work abroad are eagerly sought. Protests erupted last week in the capital Mogadishu and in the towns of Guriel and Galkayo over the missing recruits."
They told him his son had died - not in Qatar, but in Eritrea, one of the world's most secretive countries.
"They showed me a picture from their 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 died'. I cried.
They gave him the money, and told him not to ask questions.
Ali's son was one of three young Somali men whose families told Reuters they had been recruited by Somalia's federal government for jobs in Qatar, only to surface in Eritrea, where they were sent to serve in a military force against their will. Two other families said their sons had simply disappeared.
The apparent secret recruitment of young Somali men for a fighting force in Eritrea is stirring public anger in Somalia, a poor country where opportunities to work abroad are eagerly sought. Protests erupted last week in the capital Mogadishu and in the towns of Guriel and Galkayo over the missing recruits."