Al-Shabaab militants went door-to-door in Kudha, rounding up young women and men they accused of spying for the Interim Jubba Administration. Above, residents who fled their homes in Bulomarer are able to return home August 31st after African Union Mission in Somalia troops liberated the town from al-Shabaab. [AMISOM Photo / Tobin Jones]

“I can guarantee that the two women beheaded by al-Shabaab and the more than 20 civilians they [kidnapped] had nothing to do with the accusations levelled against them of spying for the Interim Jubba Administration (IJA),” said Colonel Urdan Kilas Gurase of the IJA security forces.

“The women were under the age of 20, and what these men are doing is barbaric,” he told Sabahi.Al-Shabaab fled Kudha Monday (November 10th), three days after attacking the island and killing at least 15 members of the IJA forces.

IJA forces are now back in control of the island, Gurase said.

Al-Shabaab militants had conducted house-to-house searches on the island and transported the kidnapped civilians to an unknown location, according to local media reports.

Many Kudha residents fled to remote areas out of fear of al-Shabaab’s brutality, Gurase said.

“The [militants] are harming the public because they are upset at how the [civilians] were happy at their losses. All the civilians want is to be free of these al-Shabaab terrorists,” he said.

Speaking from Kismayo, Kudha elder Omer Jeylani, 50, told Sabahi that people there are worried about the conditions their friends and families are facing back home.

“The thing that worried us the most is when we heard two innocent women were beheaded in the middle of Kudha and the whereabouts of more than 20 people is unknown after al-Shabaab took them,” Jeylani said. “We think they slaughtered those people too.”

It has been difficult to communicate with the people of Kudha as al-Shabaab has disrupted the communications network, Jeylani said.

“It is difficult for us to communicate with our relatives there, and the people will not tell us much when we do get them [on the phone],” he said. “They are frightened because al-Shabaab have forcefully entered many houses and taken people whose whereabouts are still unknown.”

Kismayo resident Maryam Mumin, 61, said her daughter and her daughter’s six children are still in Kudha and that she is worried about how they will fare.

“We are living in dark days of misery as the parents of the people who are stranded in Kudha island because al-Shabaab is taking revenge on anyone who welcomed the Jubba administration forces when [al-Shabaab] was pushed out of Kudha,” she told Sabahi.

“May God protect us from al-Shabaab. They are evil people,” she said.

Mumin called on the African Union Mission in Somalia and IJA forces to ensure the group “will no longer be able to recapture the areas reclaimed from the terrorists”.

As Somali security forces gain control of former al-Shabaab strongholds, the federal government is encouraging citizens to report suspicious activity and al-Shabaab remnants to turn themselves in and take advantage of the amnesty programme extended until the end of the year.

“There are ways that every man, woman and child can fight the terrorists as well; and none of those ways involve picking up a gun,” Somali President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud said last month.

“We can, instead, pick up the phone and report suspicious behaviour and criminal activities to the authorities,” he said. “That might mean we report our neighbour or our cousin, our own brother or sister, even our own son or daughter — but we will be saving them, as well as saving the lives of innocent Somalis.”

Source: SabhiOnline