AMISOM and Somali Government Armies killed More Than 4000 Somali Children Soldiers (boys) Waagacusub.net - Recently, in Somalia, four thousands of soldier children (boys) under the age of 17 have killed in war between Al-shabaab and AMISOM. In 2012-2014 alone, they numbered as many as 3000 boys under age 12-17 years. Ethiopian and Western secrete services knew where the leaders of Al-shabaab walks, sleeps and lives every minute. They can kill or catch them any time if they want do it that.

What is frightening nowadays is the escalation in the use of children as fighters. Being small and inconspicuous makes children to use as a special forces; children also have particular value as messengers or as spies. 

In Somalia, while children might be thought to be the people deserving greatest protection, as soldiers they are often considered the most expendable. 

In Somalia the past decade, an estimated ten thousands children have been killed in armed conflict. Three times as many have been permanently disabled or seriously injured.

Another aspect of military activities around Somalia which often goes unmentioned is the use of children in the military and the effects military conflicts have. The easily available small arms make it easier for children to use weapons. In Somalia, children as young as 10 have been recruited into a conflict both Islamists and Pro Government militia. In many places children grow up knowing only violence as their parents inflict their anger from conflicts onto their children.

There are many examples. Abdi Farah Bihi, a child soldier forcibly recruited into the Al-shabaab army at age 14, described his recruitment as follows: "I either had to join the Al-shabaab army or be killed — it was the only way to survive and to be alive. First of all they gave me a brief training in how to use a weapon, an AK47 gun. Next thing you knew you were on the front line … When we got there we were in an ambush — the AMISOM and Pro Government militia were attacking where we were in the bush. I did not shoot my gun at first — but when you looked around and saw your schoolmates younger than you, crying while they were dying … there was no option but to start pulling the trigger.”  

Recently militiamen from Somali Northern Tribal Secessionists (Somaliland) has raped and killed a 14years old girl at Xuddun area (Khatumo Sate of Somalia).

Semi-Tribal States, Federal governments and Islamists (Al-shabaab, and Ahluzunnah) recruit Somali children by training them how to kill and fight using them to help them reach their greedy and political ambitions. Children from 9 to 17 years old are the main targets and are usually the ones that end up falling into the rebels' traps.

It's bad enough that children's lives are torn apart by wars they didn't start. But when they're forced into fighting in the conflict themselves, it causes psychological and physical damage that can often never be repaired.

Every Somali child has the right to go to school and to live free from violence. Using kids as soldiers constitutes one of the most horrendous breaches of those rights and it is simply and unequivocally wrong.

Somali new parliament has to legislate how to help these children recapture safely and heal their lost childhood while also teaching them life skills to help them become independent, productive, and responsible citizens.

All this however makes it more important that the government, in collaboration with UNICEF and other appropriate agencies, sets in place plans for rehabilitation, that will cater not only to the children now in custody, or who may soon be released by the Al-shabaab faction, but also those who might be able to escape from other Somali warlord clutches. 

President Hassan Sh. Mohamud and his Prime Minister   must set up by the Inter-Ministerial Committee on Human Rights (IMCHR), which functions under the Minister of Social Services, developing plans for several rehabilitation Centers, and identified partners who can provide suitable care plus high level training to give former child combatant’s better opportunities for employment. Working together with UN agencies that move beyond the basic dependency needs of most victims of war seems the best option, and those kinds of projects has to be proposed to ILO and IOM, in addition to bilateral donors. 

Providing a positive future is essential for these children who have been so badly abused in the past.

Conclusion: AMISOM (Ethiopians and Kenyans forces) has to stop massacring the Somali’s future forces.

(1)Haboon Haji is a graduate student at East Africa University of Buuhoodle-Khatumo State of Somalia