For Immediate Release Mogadishu Massacre: A Message to Burundi

Mogadishu (24/10/2011) – Since the change of military tactics by Harakat Al-Shabaab Al Mujahideen on the 6^th of August 2011, the battle for Mogadishu has taken on an entirely new dimension. The recent battles have lured the AU forces, who previously sought refuge behind their heavily fortified bases and underground bunkers, out into the open; thereby exposing their intense vulnerabilities and proving their inability to fight in an urban area.

 

The massacre of more than 150 Burundian troops in the battle of Dayniile, Northern Mogadishu, on Thursday 20^th October marked the success of the Mujahideen’s enhanced military strategy and stands as a true testament to the diversified military operations raging in Mogadishu.

 

And while the media, both local and international, have recorded the video footage of the 76 slain Burundian soldiers displayed by the Mujahideen, complete in their AU uniform and badges, AMISOM propagandists chose to deny the deaths of their own comrades in order to mislead the families of the dead soldiers.

 

The recent Mogadishu massacre is indeed exemplary of the unforgiving fate that awaits every foreign invader in Mogadishu, but our message is now specific to the people of Burundi.

 

Your sons continue to perpetrate unspeakable atrocities against our innocent families in Somalia. And despite our persistent demands for the withdrawal of your troops, you remain obliviously adamant that your sons are serving a just cause by killing thousands of innocent men, women and children. The indiscriminate shelling carried out by your troops has displaced over a million people from their homes and has rendered them refugees in their own country.

 

Half of our children do not attend schools as your troops continue to demolish and destroy our buildings and infrastructure. And in the course of these battles, hundreds of your sons have been killed in Mogadishu while fighting as mercenaries for a worthless cause and some are still being held captive.

 

The recent deaths of your sons in Mogadishu serve as a just reward for the carnage that they have caused in the streets of Mogadishu and their corpses are now rotting in a distant land without even a funeral ceremony. Know that the indomitable people of Mogadishu will continue to massacre your troops as long as the streets of Mogadishu remain steeped in the blood of their loved ones.

 

You now have a choice to make. Either you call for the immediate withdrawal of your troops from our country or you shall receive the bodies of your remaining sons delivered to you in bags. Think long. Think hard. Think of your son’s futures.