Al-Shabaab recruits students in Kismayo

Al-Shabaab rebel group in the port city of Kismayo is forcibly recruiting students from schools in the city, reports say.Militant leaders on Wednesday visited Ahmed Ibnu Hambal School and ordered teachers to line-up over 50 students to be registered militant trainings.Militants forcefully assembled young boys for registrations after the school administration remained reluctant to the rebel order.Al-Shabaab’s education officer in the region Abdinasir Abdalla Al-Feysal who led the militants into the conscription exercise ordered the school administration to identify those who will be selected to join their militancy.Parents expressed outrage of the forceful recruitment of their children saying that they will not allow their children to be lured into the activities of the militant group.In its report, Amnesty mid last year said most of the young soldiers recruited by Al-Shabaab militants are between the ages of 10 and 17, adding that some were lured from their homes by promises of gifts like mobile phones while others were kidnapped.The 90-page report was based on 200 interviews with Somalis who had fled to neighboring countries.

The Amnesty report cites the recruitment of children by armed groups as one of the reasons so many Somalis are fleeing southern and central Somalia.Al-Shabaab is locked in fighting with the Somali government backed by African Union forces in Mogadishu and the Kenyan troops that crossed into parts of the country mid last October.Nairobi accused the rebel group of being behind a series of foreign kidnapping from its territory, an accusation Al-Shabaab denied.