Ethiopian Foreign Minister Seyoum Mesfin expressed confidence on Wednesday that a long-awaited African Union peacekeeping force would be deployed to war-torn Somalia within the month.
A day after AU leaders wrapped up a summit in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa, Mesfin told reporters the 8 000-strong mission would replace Ethiopian troops due to return home shortly and thus avoid a security vacuum in the lawless nation.
”I’m confident that the troops of the force will deploy before the final withdrawal of Ethiopia to avoid a vacuum, which means in the coming two to three weeks,” he said.
But as he closed the summit late on Tuesday, new AU chairperson President John Kufuor of Ghana, said contributions from a handful of member states had only raised 4 000 troops for the force to date.
Kufuor renewed appeals for contributions to the force that will have an initial six-month mandate.
The force is meant to take over from Ethiopian troops who entered Somalia last month and helped a weak transitional government, which had been previously confined to a provincial backwater, topple hard-line Islamists who had been running the capital, Mogadishu, for the previous six months.
Although only five countries have actually pledged troops, the Ethiopian foreign minister said that there had been widespread support among delegates at the summit for the force.
”Many African countries have declared themselves ready to support the force, and willing to assist the Somali transitional government in its efforts of capacity building,” Mesfin said.
”For the moment we have between 3 000 to 4 000 troops available; that is very encouraging for the three battalions batch supposed to be deployed first,” he said.
Somalia has been the scene of a near endless cycle of violence since the toppling of dictator Mohammad Siad Barre in 1991 but key international players have said recent events provide a window of opportunity to restore stability. — AFP
