Al Shabaab releases video of KDF Soldier Gerishon Wesike captured in 2016 El adde attack

Gerishon W. Wesike who was taken during the deadliest attack on Kenyan forces is now 53 years old after being held captive for 5 years.

In the video released on Monday May 24, the prisoner criticized the Building Bridges Initiative (BBI) in a message to President Uhuru Kenyatta.

“I expected that the government would rescue us from bondage but it has been five years now. The silence is too much and politicians are busy with politics as innocent blood is being shed.

“We protect them and this is how we are repaid. We have heard about the BBI but it is sad that they are making peace among themselves but not helping rescue prisoners from Al Shabaab,” Wesike said.

He also expressed disappointment from Kenyans whom he expected would pressure the government to come to their aid.

The El adde attack which took place at Gedo region in Somalia left more than 147 Kenyans soldiers dead, but no official number of deaths was given.

Al Shabaab claimed to have captured 12 Kenyan soldiers, including the commanding officer.

Daily Nation reported, in March 2021, that according to a UN-affiliated monitoring group, the team has received information concerning the changing whereabouts and status of the captives, which it has shared with the Kenyan authorities through an intermediary.

Accounts of what transpired on that fateful night are contained in a report by the monitoring group which noted that Somalia troops were aware of increased terrorist movement in the area in the days leading to the attack.

"Somali security sources told the Monitoring Group that they had been aware of a concentration of Al-shabaab fighters around El adde - although the precise target was unknown - and they had conveyed the information to their Kenyan interlocutors. Following the attack, however, the Kenyan forces denied that they had been forewarned," the report says.

Retired Chief of Defence Forces General Samson Mwathethe told the media that the attackers used powerful car bombs to breach the Kenyan soldiers' camp.

The trucks' blasts was so powerful that they completely obliterated everything within a 50-meter radius. Before the assailants arrived with rifles, the explosion burned fuel tankers and detonated bombs in the camp.

In 2020, Khalif Abdinoor Mohamed a member of the Al-Shabaab terrorist group who claimed to have participated in the attack surrendered to Kenyan authorities.