Somali Captors Treated Nigerian Soldier Much Harsher Than U.S. Pilot

MOGADISHU, Somalia - For Nigerian Pvt. Umar Shantali, it was a month of hell on earth.

His Somali captors first twisted his leg viciously, tearing a ligament so he could not run. Then they stripped him naked and chained him hand and foot in a dark room.

During the first two weeks of his 36-day ordeal, Gen. Mohamed Farrah Aidid's forces refused to let him use a toilet. He lay in his own waste.

"I was naked, with one arm chained to one leg," Shantali said at a news conference yesterday, demonstrating how each of his arms was chained to a leg on the same side.

Shantali's treatment at the hands of warlord Aidid's forces contrasts sharply to the treatment received by Warrant Officer Mike Durant, a U.S. helicopter pilot captured Oct. 3 and released Thursday.

U.S. military physicians reported that a Somali doctor treated Durant, putting his broken leg in a splint. Durant also was provided antibiotics and kept comfortable by his captors.

Durant has now returned to the United States, receiving a hero's welcome and a Purple Heart medal.

Shantali, 20, was all but a forgotten prisoner until the U.S. pilot was captured by Aidid's fighters.

The 20-year-old Nigerian Muslim said it was his faith in God that got him through the ordeal.

Shantali's doctor at the Swedish Field Hospital here, Maj. Ola Ahlund, said it will take three to six months for the ligament to heal.

"They held his left leg and twisted it so he couldn't run away," Ahlund said. "He could not run. Fortunately, his leg was not fractured."

Besides the physical torture, Shantali said, his captors tried to break his morale and turn him against the United Nations and American forces in Somalia.

"They said `why don't the Americans come to the roadblocks, but instead send we blacks, we Africans,' " Shantali said.

Third World contingents make up most of the frontline units on the ground in Mogadishu.

The Nigerian said his unit came under fire from Aidid's supporters at a roadblock on the morning of Sept. 5, and he got cut off from his fellow troops.

Surrounded by dagger-wielding Somalians, Shantali thought he would be killed as seven other Nigerian soldiers were that day at the roadblock fight.

"I was praying," Shantali said. "They had daggers. They were ready to kill me."

But the Somalians changed their minds and held him captive.

"When they arrested me, I had no wound on my body," Shantali said. "They told me they will take me to the Nigerian high commission."

Then the Somalians twisted his leg and chained him in the dark room.

"Every day was night," said Shantali "I couldn't see anything. Every day I was thinking, `Today I will be killed.' All this time, day and night, I prayed to Allah."

Besides Allah, Shantali said he got inspiration from a Somali woman who came to feed him.

"I called her mama," Shantali said. "Mama gave me Somalia food. She tells me, `Don't worry, you will go back to Nigeria.' "

After two weeks, Shantali said his captors provided him a pot to use as a toilet and unchained him long enough for him to drag himself to use it. Then he was chained again, he said. He was also moved several times to different houses in Mogadishu.

Asked what he would do if he were reassigned to Somalia duty and came face to face with some of his Somali captors, Shantali said:

"I was annoyed. But no longer. You must forget everything. . . . I leave it to God. I am waiting for the day of judgment. That day God will judge everybody."