Detention of Somali soldiers in Ethiopia raises questions of role in Sudan war

Somali National Army commandos from the Danab forces, particularly the 161st Unit of the 16th Brigade, conducted a planned operation in Yaaq-Doomaar on August 23, 2026. [Courtesy].

The recent detention of hundreds of Somali soldiers in Ethiopia's Jigjiga has raised questions about their possible role in the Sudan war.

While the detention looks like just simple illegal border crossing, but it seems to be more than that.

Critics say it points to a Saudi-funded military program training thousands of recruits in Somalia, with some graduates being prepared to fight alongside the Sudanese army.

The detainees, whose numbers are estimated at between 180 and 900 soldiers, belong according to information linked to the incident to a batch of roughly 3,000 recruits who spent more than a year at the Hanano camp in Galmudug state, funded by Saudi Arabia.

Jigjiga has thus, for the first time, brought hundreds of the program's graduates into the spotlight, raising a direct question about what Riyadh is actually funding and the fate of this force after its training ends.

The file's sensitivity grows with revelations from the "Voice of Horn" account, which specializes in tracking the Horn of Africa, that the Saudi program is broader than the detained batch and includes more than five thousand Somali recruits, trained by military contractors from Romania, Ukraine, South Africa, and Colombia.

More seriously, the source speaks of recruits being prepared for later deployment in Sudan to fight alongside the armed forces.

Mogadishu offered an explanation for the soldiers' crossing: Somalia's national security adviser said they were on authorized leave and took the Ethiopian route to reach their families, avoiding roads controlled by al-Shabaab.

However, this account explains the reason for the crossing without addressing the nature and scale of the Saudi program or the destination of its graduates.

Neither Addis Ababa nor the Somali embassy has issued an independent clarification regarding the incident.

Information from "Voice of Horn" intersects with what "BML Daily" published about direct Saudi funding for training programs and the possibility that some trainees will later be deployed to Sudan's front lines.

The Jigjiga incident does not prove that the detainees themselves were headed to Sudan, but it raises the heavier question: where did the earlier batches go?

The recruitment file extends into Ethiopia as well, with "Addis Standard" quoting Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed as saying that networks are targeting young people from Tigray, including minors, and smuggling them to participate in Sudan's war, exploiting their humanitarian and economic conditions.

There is no evidence linking these networks to the Saudi program, but they reveal the widening recruitment of fighters from the Horn of Africa into the war.

Sudanese publication "The Sudan Times" also assessed that the continued fighting has allowed networks loyal to the Muslim Brotherhood, including the "Al-Bara' ibn Malik Battalion," to strengthen their presence within Sudan's military establishment, linking recruitment from abroad to efforts to reinforce the armed forces with new elements claims on which the parties concerned have not commented.

In this sense, Jigjiga did not merely uncover soldiers who lost their way home; it opened up a larger Saudi file concerning thousands of recruits receiving Riyadh-funded training in Somalia, whose fate after graduation remains unclear meaning the incident will follow a military trajectory that begins with Saudi money in Horn of Africa training camps and ends with fighters on Sudan's war fronts.