A Ugandan soldier that was captured by Islamist militants in Somalia more than a year ago has been paraded in a video released by the militants, appealing to his country’s leaders to help free him.
“Please do not abandon me here,” he said in the video released on Monday by the al Qaeda-linked al Shabaab insurgency.
“Oh Ugandans, I am a soldier of your country. Join hands and come up with a solution that can secure my release.”
Reuters reports Ugandan military spokesman Lt. Col. Paddy Ankunda to confirm that the man in the video is indeed a Ugandan soldier, but declined to give any further details.
The bearded soldier was identified as Massasa M.Y.
The soldier said he was captured during a deadly 2015 attack on an African Union base in Janale, about 90 kilometers south of the capital, Mogadishu.
He also said that about 40 to 50 of his colleagues were killed in the attack.
Some 22,000 African Union troops are in Somalia supporting the Western-backed government. It is unclear whether the insurgent group, which has mounted several attacks on AU bases in the past two years, has any other African Union soldiers as prisoners.
