Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni wants the United Nations to provide funding and military support to rid Somalia of terrorists who claimed responsibility for the July 11 bombings that killed 76 people in the capital, Kampala.
A lack of resources constrains some of Somalia’s neighboring countries, who are ready to help restore stability in the Horn of Africa nation, the Ugandan president said in an e-mailed statement from the capital today.
The East African countries must step in to stop Somalia’s crisis from deepening because “there is no credible liberation movement or the type of opposition that can take over if government collapses,” Museveni said. “Somalia has been open for over 20 years to terrorism. The Security Council should provide enough money and equipment to finish the job.”
Ethiopia, Kenya, Uganda, Sudan and Djibouti, under the regional Inter-Government Authority on Development asked the African Union to “immediately” send an extra 2,000 troops to Somalia, and the UN Security Council pledged to help raise another 20,000 soldiers to stem the spread of terrorism, the Ugandan leader said on July 5.
Museveni asked the permanent members of the Security Council to make a bigger commitment to stopping the al-Shabaab Islamist militant group, which the U.S. has designated a terrorist organization with links to al-Qaeda, from spreading terrorism in Somalia, he said at a meeting with Henry Bellingham, the British minister for African affairs, yesterday.
Forces
Uganda has 2,700 soldiers in Somalia and Burundi has 2,550, according to the website of the Francophone Research Network on Peace Operations.
More countries are willing to send troops to Somalia after al-Shabaab claimed responsibility for the twin bombings in Kampala that killed 76 people and injured dozens of others while they were watching the final of the soccer World Cup played in South Africa on July 11, Ramtane Lamamra, the African Union Commisioner for peace and security, said on July 19.
Islamic militias including al-Shabaab and Hisb-ul-Islam have been battling Somalia’s government for three years and control most of southern and central Somalia, and sections of Mogadishu.
Somalia is in its 19th year of civil war and hasn’t had a functioning central administration since the overthrow of former dictator Mohamed Siad Barre in 1991.
