By Aweys Osman Yusuf
Shabelle Media Network

(Mogadishu) – Ethiopian [Woyanne] troops based in Mogadishu, the Somali capital, seized two young Somalis, beating them and burning their home in Heliwa district, north of the capital on Tuesday.

Witnesses told Shabelle that the Woyannes armed with automatic machineguns and supported by armored vehicles raided the home of the two Somali boys aged between 16 and 18, apprehending them and then going into their bed room and setting it on a blaze.

Fadumo Hersi Guled, the mother of the boys, told Shabelle that she and her husband, the father, were also beaten with the gun-butt. “We do not know what wrong our boys did. The Woyannes came into our house and they took hold of our children, telling me and my husband to sit down while torturing our kids in front of our eyes,” she said.

She said she could not know where her two boys were taken to. “They are students and they were getting prepared to go to school when the Woyannes raided our home early in the morning,” she said, indicating that a number of Somali troops were among the Woyanne forces who executed the operation.

On July 22, Woyanne troops have extracted at least five wounded men and their relatives out of a privately owned hospital in Wardhigley neighborhood, south of the capital.

A witness, who only gave his name as Hussein told Shabelle that he was standing near the hospital where he saw a contingent of Ethiopian troops and Somalis entering the hospital.

“They have taken out ten people, five of them showed wounds,” he said.

He pointed out that some of the troops stood on guard while others made their way into the hospital.

“I asked one of the Somali soldiers why those people were taken out and he told me that they were among the insurgents that launched a heavy attack on the government troops in Bakara market two nights before,” he said.

The Somali interim government gave no comments on both incidents yet.