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Security forces at Berbera Airport in Somaliland earlier this week rescued 12 young girls who were being trafficked illegally.

The girls, all between eight and 11 years old, were brought from southern Somalia, airport manager Omer Abdullahi Aden told Sabahi.

He said the children were accompanied by two men who claimed that another man had given them the children in the Walla Weyn district in Lower Shabelle region.

The two traffickers told officials that someone had paid them to deliver the girls to another man in Hargeisa, Aden said. "The children and the two men were travelling on an African Express airplane that they boarded in Mogadishu. The children looked as though they had no idea where they were being taken, and they were being transported forcefully."

All the girls spoke the Mai dialect used in some parts of southern Somalia, he said.

Aden said security personnel detained the two men, and turned the 12 girls and the men over to the Somaliland immigration police. Somaliland security forces are currently looking for the man who was allegedly waiting for the girls in Hargeisa.

"It is an organized operation to steal people, and we will arrest anyone suspected of those activities. We have no doubt that these children were being trafficked so they could be exploited; they are 12 girls from different families," he added.

Director of the Somaliland Immigration Department, Mohamed Ali, held a press conference in Hargeisa on Wednesday and said the 12 girls were likely to be sold.

He said the investigation into the case discovered that the traffickers were planning to transport the children out of Somaliland by land and cross into Djibouti, and then go on from there.

To safeguard the rights of children, it is important for social service agencies in Somaliland and UN organizations to work together in protecting unaccompanied children who are crossing borders, Osman said.

"It is also important that the government train immigration forces and the police to be watchful for children travelling without their parents," said Osman.

Lately, Somaliland has experienced an increase in human trafficking activities targeting children, said Sahardid Mohamed Osman, the operations manager at Comprehensive Community-Based Rehabilitation Somaliland (CCBRS), a local agency that works to safeguard children's rights.

"Since April, there have been two cases involving children being trafficked in groups, and it is possible that many more have been trafficked out of the country unnoticed," he told Sabahi.

In most cases, children who are being illegally kidnapped are brought from outside Somaliland, said Bashe Yusuf Ahmed, director general of the Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs of Somaliland.

In one such instance, on April 28th, nine children, aged between one and three years old, were rescued at Berbera port. The children were being transported on a ship from Yemen by two Ethiopians whose case is currently pending in a Berbera court, Ahmed said.

"[The children] are currently being looked after in the Hargeisa Orphanage Centre, and no one has claimed them yet."