Abbay Media News
Yassin Ibrahim
Uganda has started withdrawing its United Nations sanctioned peacekeeping forces in Somalia, it is reported. Uganda, a country that has the highest number of peacekeeping troops in Somalia, has already flown home more than 200 soldiers.
The United Nations has ordered a reduction of 1,000 peacekeeping soldiers from the existing forces from several African countries by the Year’s end. Kenya, Ethiopia, Burundi and Djibouti are instructed to reduce their share of peacekeepers by the end of December 2017.
While the UN has recognized the contributions these participating countries made towards bringing peace and stability to the war torn Somalia, it didn’t shy away to tell these countries of its dissatisfaction and concern of how the compensation paid for loss of life of the peacekeeping soldiers was misappropriated due to corruption.
The UN also straightforwardly expressed the failure of the participating African countries to bring the much needed peace in Somalia despite their presence for such a very long time. As a result, the UN now recommends Somalia to build its own military and bring peace and stability for itself instead of relying on foreign peacekeepers and promised the UN’s help in its endeavor to have its own army. The United states will continue its military mission from the air with about 500 of its military personnel on the ground jointly operating with the local army, it has been revealed.
It is noted that Ethiopian government recently sent about one thousand soldiers equipped with heavy military equipment across the border into Somalia. It is also a well known fact the Ethiopian government or its defense ministry has never declared the death of not even one peacekeeping soldier in Somalia and have kept the families of the deceased soldiers in the dark. It is evident, the United Nations pays a hefty compensation to the Ethiopian government for every Ethiopian peacekeeper that died in Somalia.
