What would you expect as a prize for a children’s competition? Sweets? Almost definitely. A day out at the cinema? Probably. But an AK-47? Surely not. Well, it appears that a radio station in Somalia has been giving out weapons as prizes to children in a competition. One wonders what they put in the goodie bags instead of marbles and cake – Tasers?
The radio station was Andulus radio, which is located near the capital of Somalia, Mogadishu. The competition took place in Ramadan, and is run by al-Shabab, which is linked to al-Qaeda, and is in control of most of the south of Somalia. The group enforce strict compliance with Sharia law, and are fighting a civil war against the Somali government and the African Union forces currently in the country.
This particular competition has been going on for three years. First prize in previous years was a rocket-propelled grenade launcher.
“Youths should use one hand for education and the other for a gun to defend Islam,” al-Shabab representative Mukhtar Robow said at the prize-giving ceremony, quoted in The Daily Mail.
Your starter for ten. Children had to recite the Koran, reports The Times of India, and spout knowledge about the Shabab; what they won was, well, rifles and hand grenades. So if you knew the answer to this question: “Which was was Sheki Timajilic killed in?”, you’d be laughing all the way to the frontline. First and second prizes were AK-47s, money and Islamic books; the unlucky third place got some hand grenades. Martin Robinson on The Daily Mail said that the prizes in the competition were intended for children to “defend Islam.”
“Makes that last prize you won from a local radio station seem a bit lame does it,” said James Johnson on The Inquisitr.
Crackpots. Sounds like a “bundle of laughs,” said JOE.ie. In China, they have posters on school walls that tout the benefits of tobacco; but rifles as prizes? Whoah there. The prizes didn’t just make us sit up and take notice – ”running away and diving for cover would also be an apt response.” Mukhtar Robow is “a complete crackpot.”
