Uganda’s Parliament voted on Tuesday to send peacekeeping troops to Somalia to help stem an unrelenting wave of hit-and-run attacks by insurgents on the interim government in Mogadishu.
About 500 residents have begun fleeing their homes in the capital, fearing more attacks on government installations and the administration’s Ethiopian allies.
Ugandan lawmakers agreed to deploy 1 500 troops as part of an African Union mission in a boost for the government struggling to restore stability in the chaotic nation since Ethiopian forces helped it oust Islamists in a December war.
”They will go in as soon as possible, probably early next week,” Ugandan army spokesperson Paddy Ankunda said after the vote, which was the last step in the constitutional process needed to approve such a deployment.
Rose Namayanja, chairperson of the Ugandan parliamentary defence committee, said the force could act in self-defence.
Some Ugandan lawmakers voiced concern over the safety of the soldiers after threats from Islamist fighters that any foreign troops dispatched to Somalia would be attacked.
Third Deputy Prime Minister Haji Ali Kirunda Kwejinja dismissed these concerns in Parliament, where no opposition lawmakers voted because of a walkout. There were no abstentions.
”We have reached out to all the leaders of the factions of Somalia,” he said. ”Uganda is welcomed by all factions”.
Somalia’s interim government welcomed the vote.
”It is one step forward to secure the security of Somali cities and we hope other African countries will contribute like Uganda,” government spokesperson Abdirahman Dinari told Reuters. — Reuters