Thursday December 8, 2022
Mogadishu (HOL) - Somali security forces discovered mass grave in recently-liberated Adan Yabal after government forces backed by local clan militia forces forced al Shabab militants to withdraw from the town on Monday.
Military officials in charge of the operation to retake the town said on Thursday that mass graves filled with dead al Shabab fighters had been found in the Eidiika (Ciidciidka) Jimbilow area of Adan Yabal town in the Middle Shabelle region.
Officials added that after being defeated in the battles to liberate the Middle Shabelle and Hiiraan regions, the al-Shabaab brutally buried the bodies of their militants.
"Many bodies were buried in one location without care. I've never seen such a burial before," said a Somali government official standing in one of the mass graves.
Adan Yabaal, about 245 kilometres north of the capital Mogadishu has been under al Shabab since 2016. The district is located near the border between Hiran and Middle Shabelle regions.
Earlier this week, Somali forces and allied militias pushed al Shabaab fighters out of Adan Yabal, a strategic town in the Middle Shabelle region that the Islamist group has controlled for six years.
Mahamud Hasan Mahamud, the mayor of Adan Yabal in the Middle Shabelle region, said the army and militias had taken control of the town and the surrounding district without encountering resistance on Monday.
Somali President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud told the state-owned media on Monday that Ruun Nirgood, the only village held by al Shabab in the Middle Shabelle region, would be liberated in the coming days, as the militants' time had come to an end.