Somali President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud is set to travel to Eritrea next week for talks with his Eritrean counterpart Asaias Afwerki on ways to return thousands of Somali troops stranded in the country, years after completing a clandestine military training, Shabelle TV reported on Tuesday.
Mohamud visited Eritrea months earlier and was allowed a tour to the training camps where the newly-trained Somali troops are stationed. But his promises that the soldiers would be returned home has yet to be delivered.
There have been reports that the soldiers are held for ransom by Eritrean authorities, who refused to return them home unless Somali authorities pay millions of dollars in training cost.
