19-years-old claims to be subjected to torture at Norwegian owned Koran school in Somalia
The 19-years-old history of torture got the police to take action against the school that was run by a Norwegian-Somali woman. The woman has been arrested. Two Norwegian girls were among the students.
19-years-old Jasmin Osman went to school in Hargeisa in Somaliland, north of Somalia, from July 2017 to February this year when she managed to escape over the wall surrounding the school, according to NRK. She says that she was subject to repeated blows, was incarcerated and was burned with a glowing branch. She also makes accusations against the Norwegian woman who has been arrested.
– She who ran the school, had chain with a lock that she used to tie my legs together, says the 19-years-old.
Osman has also witnessed fellow students being mistreated.
– I saw a girl who rejected Islam. She was held in a room for about a month, her arms tied to her legs. When we were chained, we had to pee ourselves, because we could not go to the bathroom, she says.
The arrested woman said in a statement to NRK that the school does not belong to her, but her husband, and that she did not have anything to do with the school. Two Norwegian girls were allegedly also students at the school, but it is currently unclear whether they have been subject to abuse.
The husband of the arrested woman in the 50’s writes in a text message to NRK that he is the owner of the school and that the allegations against his wife are not correct. He denies that she has something to do with the school and writes that no one has been physically hit at the school. The man further states that the accusations by Jasmin Osman are fabricated.
Norway’s ambassador to Kenya, Victor Rønneberg, told NRK that obviously there has been no proper operation of the school:
– The conditions were such as we have been informed very reprehensible, and Somali governments have gone out and said that the girls were subject to violence and abuse.
A representative of the British authorities told NRK that most of the girls attending the school have been subject to torture.
© NTB Scanpix / Norway Today