800 more troops sent to Somalia

Mar 27, 2009

AN additional 800 Ugandan troops have been sent to Somalia to beef up the African Union AU) peacekeeping force in the Horn of Africa nation.

By Barbara Among

AN additional 800 Ugandan troops have been sent to Somalia to beef up the African Union AU) peacekeeping force in the Horn of Africa nation.

Army spokesperson, Maj. Felix Kulayigye, said on Wednesday that a battalion left over the weekend to beef up the 1,800 troops deployed in Somalia since March 2007.

The troops are part of a promise from the Government to fill the gap left by the Ethiopian troops which withdrew last December.

“This is just to augment the troops deployed. It is part of the promise made by Uganda,” Kulayigye said. The AU said in a statement after a meeting in Ethiopia on Monday that Algeria had helped the battalion deploy and that it wanted to increase the force to 8,000 as originally planned.

Currently, the peacekeeping force consisting of troops from Uganda and Burundi stands at about 3,500 before the latest deployment.

Burundi has also said it plans to send a third battalion. A UPDF battalion consists of about 800 soldiers.

Uganda first sent 1,500 men in March 2007 as the vanguard of a planned 8,000-strong AU force. A second group was sent in August of that year and the third group of 1,600 late last year.

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