Seyed Ali Jama’, a resident of Bay region in southern Somalia, is the father of this disabled boy and says his son went missing in the holly month of Ramadan when the group declared huge offensive against Somali government and African Union peacekeepers.
“I sent my son to Holly Kuran school in a village just outside Baidao, the regional capital of Bay” Jama’ recounted.
“I waited my son for several hours, in the evening; I realized that he was not in the school after I have met with the teacher who told me that he didn’t see the little boy” he added.
He said he was later told his son in Mogadishu and fighting for Al shabaab militants, adding that he found his son in a hospital in Mogadishu when he had reached at the city.
“I was captured by a group Al shabaab fighters and told me that I shall defend Islam and I shall take part the ongoing holy war in Mogadishu against apostate government soldiers and invading African Christians” the 13 year old boy told me in a short interview as he was sometimes screaming because of the pain at his back.
He spelled out he used to deliver ammunition boxes to Al shabaab fighters who are combating at fronts.
“One day, when I was at a front battle in Mogadishu, a mortar hit very range close to me, shrapnel struck at my back.”
What made the boy very disappointed is that the militants run away from him lying at the ground, but fortunately an ambulance took him to a hospital in Mogadishu.
The militant group Al shabaab is said to be one of 'most persistent violators' in the world of using child soldiers.
