Djibouti bolsters peacekeepers in Somalia

 

An advance party consisting of 100 troops, led by General Zakaria Sheikh Ibrahim, arrived at Mogadishu airport this afternoon. A further 800 troops will follow in the course of the next week or so to bring the Djiboutian contingent up to strength.

 

Somali Prime Minister, Abdiweli Mohamed Ali, was there to welcome the Djiboutian forces as they landed at the Mogadishu airport.

Deputy Force Commander of AMISOM, Brigadier-General Audace Nduwumunsi, said,

 

“Today’s initial deployment of the Djiboutian contingent is a great step forward for the AMISOM Force in Mogadishu and for building stability in the country. The nine hundred extra troops will initially be based at Al Jazeera IV as they undergo specific, in theatre training.”

 

 

Djibouti is the third country to send troops into Somalia under AMISOM. Uganda and Burundi troops, currently numbering 9800, are in Mogadishu in support of the Somali peace process and the institutions it has generated. In August, they forced the terror group Al Shabaab to withdraw from the capital. 

 

 

Somalia's neighbours like Djibouti are worried instability created by al Shabaab and al Qaeda-trained foreign fighters taking refuge there will spill over their borders.

 

Kenya's military is already battling al Shabaab in the south. It sent its troops into Somalia more than two months ago after a spate of kidnappings on Kenyan soil.

 

Since then, Kenya, the region's biggest economy, has been plagued by a wave of low-level attacks in areas close to its porous frontier with Somalia.

 

For the second straight day, a roadside bomb exploded in Kenya's Dadaab refugee camp, the world's largest, now home to more than 440,000 mostly Somali refugees.

 

No one was killed in the blast but the ongoing attacks have restricted the movement of aid workers in the camp. A provincial police commander said some suspects had been arrested in connection with the attacks.

 

On Monday night, two people selling khat, a mild natural stimulant, were shot dead in Kenya's eastern town of Garissa in a raid the police blamed on al Shabaab.