Somali troops returning from once-secret training in Eritrea

By OMAR FARUK
Associated Press

NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — Somalia’s government says the first group of 5,000 Somalis sent to Eritrea for military training has returned home, to the relief of parents who had alleged their sons had been recruited under false pretenses. The defense minister on Wednesday confirmed the first group’s arrival in Somalia’s capital, Mogadishu, and said the rest will arrive in the coming days. Some parents feared their sons had been sent to neighboring Ethiopia’s embattled Tigray region, where Eritrean forces were fighting alongside Ethiopian government forces against Tigray ones. Somalia’s government denied its troops had been used in combat.