Somali police launched an investigation Sunday after 20 foreigners werediscovered near territory controlled by the Al-Shabaab militant groupclaiming to be fishermen who had been held hostage for years.
Police spokesman Sadik Dudishe said the men — 14 Iranians and sixPakistanis — were apprehended for questioning after they wanderedunexpectedly from a part of Galmudug state under militant control.
“Some of these people were kidnapped by Al-Shabaab in 2014, while otherswere abducted on the Harardhere coast, near Qosol-tire, in southern Somaliain mid-2019,” Dudishe said in a statement.
“Four of them have physical injuries,” he said.
It is not clear how the men came to be released, and police provided nofurther detail, citing an ongoing inquiry.
Local authorities in Hobyo, the coastal town where the men appeared, saidthe foreigners were being held for questioning.
“We are still investigating these 20 men who were detained today aftercoming from an Al-Shabaab controlled area,” Hobyo’s commissioner AbdullahiAhmed Ali told reporters.
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“They have claimed to be fishermen,” he added.
Al-Shabaab, which controls swathes of rural Somalia, has been trying tooverthrow the central government for 15 years, funding its insurgencythrough criminal activities including kidnapping and ransom.
Somalia has also been plagued by piracy for years, though attacks onmaritime vessels off the coast have fallen off sharply in recent yearssince peaking at 176 in 2011.
Unconfirmed reports suggest the men could have been abducted by pirates andpassed on to Al-Shabaab, an affiliate of Al-Qaeda, which includes foreignfighters among its ranks.
In 2020, three Iranian fishermen believed to be the last hostages held bySomali pirates were freed after five years of captivity. – APP/AFP
