Somalia authorities rescued 32 children on Thursday night from a school run by al Shabaab. The children had been taken in as recruits by the militant group.
“The 32 children are safe and the government is looking after them. It is unfortunate that terrorists are recruiting children to their twisted ideology,” Abdirahman Omar Osman, information minister for the Somali federal government, told Reuters on Friday.
“It showed how desperate the terrorists are, as they are losing the war and people are rejecting terror.”
Al Shabbab said that the government attacked the school in Middle Shabelle region using drones, killing four children and a teacher, taking away the rest of the children.
The government did not commented on the reports of casualties or the use of drones.
In a report this week, the New York-based Human Rights Group said that since September 2017, al Shabaab had ordered village elders, teachers in Islamic religious schools, and rural communities to hand over hundreds of children as young as eight.
In April 2016, the self-proclaimed Islamic State marked its official presence in Somalia by staging its first attack against African Union military peacekeepers.
The militia is fighting to topple the U.N. backed Somali government and establish rule.
The United States has pursued a two-pronged approach in Somalia by providing financial and logistical support to AMISOM and conducting counterterrorism operations aiming at defeating al Shabaab.
