With the fighting in Somalia’s capital Mogadishu deteriorating day after day, hospitals were overwhelmed by many wounded civilians.
Thus, I paid a visit to Madina Hospital in Mogadishu and came across an adolescent Somali boy paralyzed after being wounded by mortar shrapnel
What happened to him? Let the boy and his father tell their horrible and gloomy saga.
Seyed Ali Jama’, a resident of the Bay region in southern Somalia, said his 13-year-old son Adan went missing during Ramadan while a large-scale offensive by the extremist group Al Shabaab was underway against the Somali government and African Union peacekeepers.
“I sent my son to Holy Koran school in a village just outside Baidao, the regional capital of Bay,” the elder Jama’ recounted.
“I waited for my son for several hours. In the evening, I realized that he was not in the school after I met with the teacher who told me that he hadn’t see the little boy,” he added.
Jama' said he was later told his son was in Mogadishu fighting with Al Shabaab. He found his son in the hospital in Mogadishu when he reached the city.
The son, Adan, continues the story:
“I was captured by a group of Al Shabaab fighters and they told me that I shall defend Islam and I shall take part in the ongoing holy war in Mogadishu against apostate government soldiers and invading African Christians,” the boy in an interview interrupted by his screams because of the pain in his back.
Adan spelled out that he was injured while delivering ammunition boxes to Al Shabaab fighters at the battle front.
“One day, when I was at a battle front in Mogadishu, a mortar hit very close range to me, shrapnel struck at my back.”
Lying there on the ground, he expected the fighters to come to his aid. Instead, they ran away. Fortunately, an ambulance found him and delivered him to the hospital.
Al Shabaab is one of the world's major human rights violators in its use of child soldiers, according to a report of the United Nation's Secretary-General’s Special Representative for Children and Armed Conflict issued in May 2010.
It is very difficult to know the number of children whom Al Shabaab has forced into combat. But the group has forced many young boys to fight by threatening to kill them or harm their family.
In early November, the United Nations special representative of the Secretary-General for Children and Armed Conflict, Radhika Coomaraswamy, visited the Somali capital to discuss with government officials how to prevent the recruiting of child soldiers. Coomaraswamy urged Somalia’s new prime minister to provide for the welfare of Somali children.
For his part, Prime Minister Mohammed Abdullahi Mohammed said his government would make it a priority to take care of and secure the rights of children.
Nonetheless, the father of the disabled teen wondered why the extremist group took his son without permission if they are real Islamist fighters. He alluded to a verse in the Koran that forbids boys who have not reached puberty from participating in Jihad.
Asked about what he will do, the boy said he will never work with Al Shabaab, as he said they didn’t give him any money when he was fighting for the group during Ramadan battles. He had been lured to stay and fight for them by the promise of pay.
Adan said many young boys like him are now fighting for Al Shabaab who have no care and welfare.
In August, Al Shabaab, which controls much territory in southern and central Somalia, declared a large-scale offensive to eliminate what it called invading African Christians and their apostate government. More than 100 people were killed in that offensive. Fighting is continuing.
Source: www.allheadlinenews.com
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