An opportunity to foster stability in Somalia after years of war is ”being squandered”, the deputy chairperson of the African Union said in an interview published in the Financial Times on Wednesday.
Patrick Mazimhaka also told the paper that there had not yet been any clear commitment from a non-African country to help fund the nearly 8 000-strong mission due for Somalia.
”With every day that passes without a clear commitment to help the AU in Somalia, an opportunity is being squandered,” Mazimhaka was quoted as saying by the business daily.
Mazimhaka emphasised the importance of getting peacekeepers on the ground in Somalia as soon as possible: ”African countries do not consider it necessary to have a place stabilised and then send in troops. You send the troops first to create the right atmosphere [for peace].”
The AU’s top security body agreed on the immediate deployment of nearly 8 000 peacekeepers as part of Amisom (African Mission to Somalia), it said after a meeting in the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa on Friday.
An initial deployment of more than 2 500 troops — one-third the projected deployment — would be dispatched immediately, mandated for an initial six- month period, according to an AU statement.
The 7 600-strong force should later assume a United Nations mandate which would work towards long-term reconstruction in the country, where the weak transitional federal government in December got Ethiopian military support to oust Islamists from Mogadishu and the south.
Only two countries, however, Malawi and Uganda, have so far pledged to provide troops.
Meanwhile, Ethiopian troops on Tuesday began pulling out of Mogadishu despite fears of a security vacuum in the still largely lawless Somali capital, nearly four weeks after they helped oust hardline Islamists. – Sapa-AFP